GIFT  OF 
Leslie   Van  Ness   Denman 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 


The  waterfront  decided  that  there  was  something  to  me  despite  my  youth 


JOHN 
BARLEYCORN 


BY 

JACK  LONDON 

Author  of  "The  Call  of  the  Wild,"  "The 

Abysmal  Brute,"  "Smoke  Bellew," 

"The  Night-Born,"  etc. 


Illustrated  by 
H.T.  DUNN 


NEW  YORK 

THE  CENTURY  CO. 

1913 


Copyright,  1913,  by 
THE  CENTURY  Co. 


Copyright,  1913,  by 
THE  CURTIS  PUBLISHING  COMPANY 


Published,  August,  1913 


:::.•••,".:::  A'":  rx 
.•  :  "•.-    :  :..::••  ••• 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

The  Waterfront  decided  that  there  was  something  to 
me  despite  my  youth Frontispiece 

I  was  sent  from  the  house,  half  a  mile  away,  to  carry 

to  him  a  pail  of  beer 19 

I  was  a  man,  a  god 57 

A  few  words  started  the  fray 105 

Work!    Let  any  youth  just  turned  eighteen  try  to 

out-shovel  two  man-grown  coal-shovelers !     .     .   197 

I  had  let  a  career  go  hang,  and  was  on  the  adventure 
path  again  . 233 

I  had  the  craving  at  last  —  and  it  was  mastering  me  299 

And  yet,  with  jaundiced  eye  I  gaze  upon  all  the  beauty 
and  wonder  about  me 311 


M103893 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 


CHAPTER  I 

IT  all  came  to  me  one  election  day.  It  was  on 
a  warm  California  afternoon,  and  I  had  rid 
den  down  into  the  Valley  of  the  Moon  from  the 
ranch  to  the  little  village  to  vote  yes  and  no  to 
a  host  of  proposed  amendments  to  the  Constitu 
tion  of  the  State  of  California.  Because  of  the 
warmth  of  the  day  I  had  had  several  drinks  be 
fore  casting  my  ballot,  and  divers  drinks  after 
casting  it.  Then  I  had  ridden  up  through  the 
vine-clad  hills  and  rolling  pastures  of  the  ranch 
and  arrived  at  the  farmhouse  in  time  for  another 
drink  and  supper. 

"How  did  you  vote  on  the  suffrage  amend 
ment?"  Charmian  asked. 

"I  voted  for  it." 

She  uttered  an  exclamation  of  surprise.  For 
be  it  known,  in  my  younger  days,  despite  my  ar- 

3 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

dent  democracy,  I  had  been  opposed  to  woman 
rage.  :l(In  my  later  and  more  tolerant  years 
been,  unenthusiastic  in  my  acceptance  of  it 
as  ah- inevitable  social  phenomenon. 

"Now  just  why  did  you  vote  for  it*?"  Charmian 
asked. 

I  answered.  I  answered  at  length.  I  an 
swered  indignantly.  The  more  I  answered,  the 
more  indignant  I  became.  (No;  I  was  not  drunk. 
The  horse  I  had  ridden  was  well-named  "The 
Outlaw."  I  Jd  like  to  see  any  drunken  man  ride 
her.) 

And  yet — how  shall  I  say^ — I  was  lighted  up, 
I  was  feeling  "good,"  I  was  pleasantly  jingled. 

"When  the  women  get  the  ballot,  they  will  vote 
for  prohibition,"  I  said.  "It  is  the  wives,  and 
sisters,  and  mothers,  and  they  only,  who  will 
drive  the  nails  into  the  coffin  of  John  Barley 
corn — " 

"But  I  thought  you  were  a  friend  to  John  Bar 
leycorn,"  Charmian  interpolated. 

"I  am.  I  was.  I  am  not.  I  never  am.  I 
am  never  less  his  friend  than  when  he  is  with 
me  and  when  I  seem  most  his  friend.  He  is  the 
king  of  liars.  He  is  the  frankest  truth-sayer. 
He  is  the  august  companion  with  whom  one  walks 

4 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

with  the  gods.  He  is  also  in  league  with  the 
Noseless  One.  His  way  leads  to  truth  naked, 
and  to  death.  He  gives  clear  vision,  and  muddy 
dreams.  He  is  the  enemy  of  life,  and  the  teacher 
of  wisdom  beyond  life's  vision.  He  is  a  red- 
handed  killer,  and  he  slays  youth." 

And  Charmian  looked  at  me,  and  I  knew  she 
wondered  where  I  had  got  it. 

I  continued  to  talk.  As  I  say,  I  was  lighted 
up.  In  my  brain  every  thought  was  at  home. 
Every  thought,  in  its  little  cell,  crouched  ready- 
dressed  at  the  door,  like  prisoners  at  midnight 
waiting  a  jail-break.  And  every  thought  was  a 
vision,  bright-imaged,  sharp-cut,  unmistakable. 
My  brain  was  illuminated  by  the  clear,  white 
light  of  alcohol.  John  Barleycorn  was  on  a  truth- 
telling  rampage,  giving  away  the  choicest  secrets 
on  himself.  And  I  was'  his  spokesman.  There 
moved  the  multitudes  of  memories  of  my  past 
life,  all  orderly  arranged  like  soldiers  in  some 
vast  review.  It  was  mine  to  pick  and  choose.  I 
was  a  lord  of  thought,  the  master  of  my  vocab 
ulary  and  of  the  totality  of  my  experience,  un 
erringly  capable  of  selecting  my  data  and  build 
ing  my  exposition.  For  so  John  Barleycorn 
tricks  and  lures,  setting  the  maggots  of  intelli- 

5 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

gence  gnawing,  whispering  his  fatal  intuitions  of 
truth,  flinging  purple  passages  into  the  monotony 
of  one's  days. 

I  outlined  my  life  to  Charmian,  and  expounded 
the  make-up  of  my  constitution.  I  was  no  he 
reditary  alcoholic.  I  had  been  born  with  no  or 
ganic,  chemical  predisposition  toward  alcohol. 
In  this  matter  I  was  normal  in  my  generation. 
Alcohol  was  an  acquired  taste.  It  had  been  pain 
fully  acquired.  Alcohol  had  been  a  dreadfully 
repugnant  thing — more  nauseous  than  any  physic. 
Even  now  I  did  not  like  the  taste  of  it.  I  drank 
it  only  for  its  "kick."  And  from  the  age  of  five 
to  that  of  twenty-five,  I  had  not  learned  to  care 
for  its  kick.  Twenty  years  of  unwilling  appren 
ticeship  had  been  required  to  make  my  system  re- 
belliously  tolerant  of  alcohol,  to  make  me,  in  the 
heart  and  the  deeps  of  me,  desirous  of  alcohol. 

I  sketched  my  first  contacts  with  alcohol,  told 
of  my  first  intoxications  and  revulsions,  and 
pointed  out  always  the  one  thing  that  in  the  end 
had  won  me  over — namely,  the  accessibility  of  al 
cohol.  Not  only  had  it  always  been  accessible, 
but  every  interest  of  my  developing  life  had 
drawn  me  to  it.  A  newsboy  on  the  streets,  a 
sailor,  a  miner,  a  wanderer  in  far  lands,  always 

6 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

where  men  came  together  to  exchange  ideas,  to 
laugh  and  boast  and  dare,  to  relax,  to  forget  the 
dull  toil  of  tiresome  nights  and  days,  always  they 
came  together  over  alcohol.  The  saloon  was  the 
place  of  congregation.  Men  gathered  to  it  as 
primitive  men  gathered  about  the  fire  of  the  squat- 
ting-place  or  the  fire  at  the  mouth  of  the  cave. 

I  reminded  Chairman  of  the  canoe-houses  from 
which  she  had  been  barred  in  the  South  Pacific, 
where  the  kinky-haired  cannibals  escaped  from 
their  womenkind  and  feasted  and  drank  by  them 
selves,  the  sacred  precincts  taboo  to  women  under 
pain  of  death.  As  a  youth,  by  way  of  the  saloon 
I  had  escaped  from  the  narrowness  of  women's 
influence  into  the  wide  free  world  of  men.  All 
ways  led  to  the  saloon.  The  thousand  roads  of 
romance  and  adventure  drew  together  in  the  sa 
loon,  and  thence  led  out  and  on  over  the  world. 

"The  point  is,"  I  concluded  my  sermon,  "that 
it  is  the  accessibility  of  alcohol  that  has  given  me 
my  taste  for  alcohol.  I  did  not  care  for  it.  I 
used  to  laugh  at  it.  Yet  here  I  am,  at  the  last, 
possessed  with  the  drinker's  desire.  It  took 
twenty  years  to  implant  that  desire;  and  for  ten 
years  more  that  desire  has  grown.  And  the  ef 
fect  of  satisfying  that  desire  is  anything  but 

7 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

good.  Temperamentally  I  am  wholesome-hearted 
and  merry.  Yet  when  I  walk  with  John  Barley 
corn  I  suffer  all  the  damnation  of  intellectual 
pessimism. 

" — But,"  I  hastened  to  add  (I  always  hasten 
to  add),  " — John  Barleycorn  must  have  his  due. 
He  does  tell  the  truth.  That  is  the  curse  of  it. 
The  so-called  truths  of  life  are  not  true.  They 
are  the  vital  lies  by  which  life  lives,  and  John 
Barleycorn  gives  them  the  lie." 

"Which  does  not  make  toward  life,"  Charmian 
said. 

"Very  true,"  I  answered.  "And  that  is  the 
perfectest  hell  of  it.  John  Barleycorn  makes  to 
ward  death.  That  is  why  I  voted  for  the  amend 
ment  to-day.  I  read  back  in  my  life  and  saw 
how  the  accessibility  of  alcohol  had  given  me  the 
taste  for  it.  You  see,  comparatively  few  alco 
holics  are  born  in  a  generation.  And  by  alco 
holic  I  mean  a  man  whose  chemistry  craves  al 
cohol  and  drives  him  resistlessly  to  it.  The  great 
majority  of  habitual  drinkers  are  born  not  only 
without  desire  for  alcohol  but  with  actual  re 
pugnance  toward  it.  Not  the  first,  nor  the  twen 
tieth,  nor  the  hundredth  drink,  succeeded  in  giv 
ing  them  the  liking.  But  they  learned,  just  as 

8 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

men  learn  to  smoke ;  though  it  is  far  easier  to  learn 
to  smoke  than  to  learn  to  drink.  They  learned 
because  alcohol  was  so  accessible.  The  women 
know  the  game.  They  pay  for  it — the  wives  and 
sisters  and  mothers.  And  when  they  come  to  vote 
they  will  vote  for  prohibition.  And  the  best  of 
it  is  that  there  will  be  no  hardship  worked  on 
the  coming  generation.  Not  having  access  to  al 
cohol,  not  being  predisposed  toward  alcohol,  it 
will  never  miss  alcohol.  It  will  mean  life  more 
abundant  for  the  manhood  of  the  young  boys  born 
and  growing  up — ay,  and  life  more  abundant  for 
the  young  girls  born  and  growing  up  to  share  the 
lives  of  the  young  men." 

"Why  not  write  all  this  up  for  the  sake  of  the 
young  men  and  women  coming4?"  Chairman 
asked.  "Why  not  write  it  so  as  to  help  the 
wives  and  sisters  and  mothers  to  the  way  they 
should  vote*?" 

"The  'Memoirs  of  an  Alcoholic.3 '  I  sneered 
— or,  rather,  John  Barleycorn  sneered;  for  he  sat 
with  me  there  at  table  in  my  pleasant,  phi 
lanthropic  jingle,  and  it  is  a  trick  of  John  Bar 
leycorn  to  turn  the  smile  to  a  sneer  without  an 
instant's  warning. 

"No,"  said  Charmian,  ignoring  John  Barley- 

9 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

corn's  roughness  as  so  many  women  have  learned 
to  do.  "You  have  shown  yourself  no  alcoholic, 
no  dipsomaniac,  but  merely  an  habitual  drinker, 
one  who  has  made  John  Barleycorn's  acquaint 
ance  through  long  years  of  rubbing  shoulders 
with  him.  Write  it  up  and  call  it  'Alcoholic 
Memoirs.'  " 


10 


CHAPTER  II 

AND,  ere  I  begin,  I  must  ask  the  reader  to 
walk  with  me  in  all  sympathy;  and,  since 
sympathy  is  merely  understanding,  begin  by  un 
derstanding  me  and  whom  and  what  I  write  about. 
In  the  first  place,  I  am  a  seasoned  drinker.  I 
have  no  constitutional  predisposition  for  alcohol. 
I  am  not  stupid.  I  am  not  a  swine.  I  know  the 
drinking  game  from  A  to  Zed,  and  I  have  used 
my  judgment  in  drinking.  I  never  have  to  be 
put  to  bed.  Nor  do  I  stagger.  In  short,  I  am 
a  normal,  average  man;  and  I  drink  in  the  nor 
mal,  average  way,  as  drinking  goes.  And  this  is 
the  very  point:  I  am  writing  of  the  effects  of 
alcohol  on  the  normal,  average  man.  I  have  no 
word  to  say  for  or  about  the  microscopically  un 
important  excessivist,  the  dipsomaniac. 

There  are,  broadly  speaking,  two  types  of 
drinkers.  There  is  the  man  whom  we  all  know, 
stupid,  unimaginative,  whose  brain  is  bitten 
numbly  by  numb  maggots ;  who  walks  generously 

11 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

with  wide-spread,  tentative  legs,  falls  frequently 
in  the  gutter,  and  who  sees,  in  the  extremity  of 
his  ecstasy,  blue  mice  and  pink  elephants.  He  is 
the  type  that  gives  rise  to  the  jokes  in  the  funny 
papers. 

The  other  type  of  drinker  has  imagination,  vi 
sion.  Even  when  most  pleasantly  jingled  he 
walks  straight  and  naturally,  never  staggers  nor 
falls,  and  knows  just  where  he  is  and  what  he  is 
doing.  It  is  not  his  body  but  his  brain  that  is 
drunken.  He  may  bubble  with  wit,  or  expand 
with  good  fellowship.  Or  he  may  see  intellectual 
specters  and  phantoms  that  are  cosmic  and  logical 
and  that  take  the  forms  of  syllogisms.  It  is  when 
in  this  condition  that  he  strips  away  the  husks 
of  life's  healthiest  illusions  and  gravely  considers 
the  iron  collar  of  necessity  welded  about  the  neck 
of  his  soul.  This  is  the  hour  of  John  Barley 
corn's  subtlest  power.  It  is  easy  for  any  man  to 
roll  in  the  gutter.  But  it  is  a  terrible  ordeal  for 
a  man  to  stand  upright  on  his  two  legs  unswaying, 
and  decide  that  in  all  the  universe  he  finds  for 
himself  but  one  freedom,  namely,  the  anticipating 
of  the  day  of  his  death.  With  this  man  this  is 
the  hour  of  the  white  logic  (of  which  more  anon), 
when  he  knows  that  he  may  know  only  the  laws 

12 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

of  things — the  meaning  of  things  never.  This 
is  his  danger  hour.  His  feet  are  taking  hold  of 
the  path  that  leads  down  into  the  grave. 

All  is  clear  to  him.  All  these  baffling  head- 
reaches  after  immortality  are  but  the  panics  of 
souls  frightened  by  the  fear  of  death,  and  cursed 
with  the  thrice-cursed  gift  of  imagination.  They 
have  not  the  instinct  for  death ;  they  lack  the  will 
to  die  when  the  time  to  die  is  at  hand.  They 
trick  themselves  into  believing  they  will  outwit 
the  game  and  win  to  a  future,  leaving  the  other 
animals  to  the  darkness  of  the  grave  or  the  an 
nihilating  heats  of  the  crematory.  But  he,  this 
man  in  the  hour  of  his  white  logic,  knows  that 
they  trick  and  outwit  themselves.  The  one  event 
happeneth  to  all  alike.  There  is  no  new  thing 
under  the  sun,  not  even  that  yearned-for  bauble 
of  feeble  souls — immortality.  But  he  knows,  he 
knows,  standing  upright  on  his  two  legs  unsway- 
ing.  He  is  compounded  of  meat  and  wine  and 
sparkle,  of  sun-mote  and  world-dust,  a  frail  mecha 
nism  made  to  run  for  a  span,  to  be  tinkered  at 
by  doctors  of  divinity  and  doctors  of  physic,  and 
to  be  flung  into  the  scrap-heap  at  the  end. 

Of  course,  all  this  is  soul-sickness,  life-sick 
ness.  It  is  the  penalty  the  imaginative  man  must 

13 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

pay  for  his  friendship  with  John  Barleycorn. 
The  penalty  paid  by  the  stupid  man  is  simpler, 
easier.  He  drinks  himself  into  sottish  uncon 
sciousness.  He  sleeps  a  drugged  sleep,  and,  if  he 
dream,  his  dreams  are  dim  and  inarticulate.  But 
to  the  imaginative  man,  John  Barleycorn  sends 
the  pitiless,  spectral  syllogisms  of  the  white  logic. 
He  looks  upon  life  and  all  its  affairs  with  the 
jaundiced  eye  of  a  pessimistic  German  philoso 
pher.  He  sees  through  all  illusions.  He  trans 
values  all  values.  God  is  bad,  truth  is  a  cheat, 
and  life  is  a  joke.  From  his  calm-mad  heights, 
with  the  certitude  of  a  god,  he  beholds  all  life  as 
evil.  Wife,  children,  friends — in  the  clear, 
white  light  of  his  logic  they  are  exposed  as  frauds 
and  shams.  He  sees  through  them,  and  all  that 
he  sees  is  their  frailty,  their  meagerness,  their  sor- 
didness,  their  pitifulness.  No  longer  do  they  fool 
him.  They  are  miserable  little  egotisms,  like  all 
the  other  little  humans,  fluttering  their  May-fly 
life-dance  of  an  hour.  They  are  without  free 
dom.  They  are  puppets  of  chance.  So  is  he. 
He  realizes  that.  But  there  is  one  difference. 
He  sees;  he  knows.  And  he  knows  his  one  free 
dom:  he  may  anticipate  the  day  of  his  death. 
All  of  which  is  not  good  for  a  man  who  is  made 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

to  live  and  love  and  be  loved.  Yet  suicide,  quick 
or  slow,  a  sudden  spill  or  a  gradual  oozing  away 
through  the  years,  is  the  price  John  Barleycorn 
exacts.  No  friend  of  his  ever  escapes  making 
the  just,  due  payment. 


CHAPTER  III 

I  WAS  five  years  old  the  first  time  I  got  drunk. 
It  was  on  a  hot  day,  and  my  father  was 
plowing  in  the  field.  I  was  sent  from  the  house, 
half  a  mile  away,  to  carry  to  him  a  pail  of  beer. 
"And  be  sure  you  don't  spill  it,"  was  the  parting 
injunction. 

It  was,  as  I  remember  it,  a  lard  pail,  very  wide 
across  the  top,  and  without  a  cover.  As  I  tod 
dled  along,  the  beer  slopped  over  the  rim  upon 
my  legs.  And  as  I  toddled,  I  pondered.  Beer 
was  a  very  precious  thing.  Come  to  think  of  it, 
it  must  be  wonderfully  good.  Else  why  was  I 
never  permitted  to  drink  of  it  in  the  housed 
Other  things  kept  from  me  by  the  grown-ups  I 
had  found  good.  Then  this,  too,  was  good. 
Trust  the  grown-ups.  They  knew.  And  any 
way,  the  pail  was  too  full.  I  was  slopping  it 
against  my  legs  and  spilling  it  on  the  ground. 
Why  waste  it^  And  no  one  would  know 
whether  I  had  drunk  or  spilled  it. 

16 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

I  was  so  small  that  in  order  to  negotiate  the 
pail,  I  sat  down  and  gathered  it  into  my  lap. 
First  I  sipped  the  foam.  I  was  disappointed. 
The  preciousness  evaded  me.  Evidently  it  did 
not  reside  in  the  foam.  Besides,  the  taste  was 
not  good.  Then  I  remembered  seeing  the  grown 
ups  blow  the  foam  away  before  they  drank.  I 
buried  my  face  in  the  foam  and  lapped  the  solid 
liquid  beneath.  It  was  n't  good  at  all.  But 
still  I  drank.  The  grown-ups  knew  what  they 
were  about.  Considering  my  diminutiveness, 
the  size  of  the  pail  in  my  lap,  and  my  drinking 
out  of  it  with  my  breath  held  and  my  face  buried 
to  the  ears  in  foam,  it  was  rather  difficult  to  es 
timate  how  much  I  drank.  Also,  I  was  gulping 
it  down  like  medicine,  in  nauseous  haste  to  get 
the  ordeal  over. 

I  shuddered  when  I  started  on,  and  decided 
that  the  good  taste  would  come  afterward.  I 
tried  several  times  more  in  the  course  of  that  long 
half-mile.  Then,  astounded  by  the  quantity  of 
beer  that  was  lacking,  and  remembering  having 
seen  stale  beer  made  to  foam  afresh,  I  took  a  stick 
and  stirred  what  was  left  till  it  foamed  to  the 
brim. 

And  my  father  never  noticed.     He  emptied  the 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

pail  with  the  wide  thirst  of  the  sweating  plow 
man,  returned  it  to  me,  and  started  up  the  plow. 
I  endeavored  to  walk  beside  the  horses.  I  remem 
ber  tottering  and  falling  against  their  heels  in 
front  of  the  shining  share,  and  that  my  father 
hauled  back  on  the  lines  so  violently  that  the 
horses  nearly  sat  down  on  me.  He  told  me  af 
terward  that  it  was  by  only  a  matter  of  inches 
that  I  escaped  disembowelling.  Vaguely,  too,  I 
remember,  my  father  carried  me  in  his  arms  to 
the  trees  on  the  edge  of  the  field,  while  all  the 
world  reeled  and  swung  about  me  and  I  was 
aware  of  deadly  nausea  mingled  with  an  appall 
ing  conviction  of  sin. 

I  slept  the  afternoon  away  under  the  trees, 
and  when  my  father  roused  me  at  sundown  it 
was  a  very  sick  little  boy  that  got  up  and  dragged 
wearily  homeward.  I  was  exhausted,  oppressed 
by  the  weight  of  my  limbs,  and  in  my  stomach 
was  a  harp-like  vibration  that  extended  to  my 
throat  and  brain.  My  condition  was  like  that 
of  one  who  had  gone  through  a  battle  with  poison. 
In  truth,  I  had  been  poisoned. 

In  the  weeks  and  months  that  followed  I  had 
no  more  interest  in  beer  than  in  the  kitchen  stove 
after  it  had  burned  me.  The  grown-ups  were 

18 


; 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

right.  Beer  was  not  for  children.  The  grown 
ups  didn't  mind  it;  but  neither  did  they  mind 
taking  pills  and  castor  oil.  As  for  me,  I  could 
manage  to  get  along  quite  well  without  beer. 
Yes,  and  to  the  day  of  my  death  I  could  have 
managed  to  get  along  quite  well  without  it.  But 
circumstance  decreed  otherwise.  At  every  turn 
in  the  world  in  which  I  lived,  John  Barleycorn 
beckoned.  There  was  no  escaping  him.  All 
paths  led  to  him.  And  it  took  twenty  years  of 
contact,  of  exchanging  greetings  and  passing  on 
with  my  tongue  in  my  cheek,  to  develop  in  me 
a  sneaking  liking  for  the  rascal. 


21 


CHAPTER  IV 

MY  next  bout  with  John  Barleycorn  occurred 
when  I  was  seven.  This  time  my  imag 
ination  was  at  fault,  and  I  was  frightened  into 
the  encounter.  Still  farming,  my  family  had 
moved  to  a  ranch  on  the  bleak  sad  coast  of  San 
Mateo  County  south  of  San  Francisco.  It  was  a 
wild,  primitive  countryside  in  those  days;  and 
often  I  heard  my  mother  pride  herself  that  we 
were  old  American  stock  and  not  immigrant  Irish 
and  Italians  like  our  neighbors.  In  all  our  sec 
tion  there  was  only  one  other  old  American  family. 
One  Sunday  morning  found  me,  how  or  why  I 
cannot  now  remember,  at  the  Morrisey  ranch. 
A  number  of  young  people  had  gathered  there 
from  the  nearer  ranches.  Besides,  the  oldsters 
had  been  there,  drinking  since  early  dawn,  and, 
some  of  them,  since  the  night  before.  The  Mor- 
riseys  were  a  huge  breed,  and  there  were  many 
strapping  great  sons  and  uncles,  heavy-booted, 
big-fisted,  rough-voiced. 

22 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

Suddenly  there  were  screams  from  the  girls 
and  cries  of  "Fight!"  There  was  a  rush.  Men 
hurled  themselves  out  of  the  kitchen.  Two 
giants,  flush-faced,  with  graying  hair,  were  locked 
in  each  other's  arms.  One  was  Black  Matt,  who, 
everybody  said,  had  killed  two  men  in  his  time. 
The  women  screamed  softly,  crossed  themselves, 
or  prayed  brokenly,  hiding  their  eyes  and  peeping 
through  their  fingers.  But  not  I.  It  is  a  fair 
presumption  that  I  was  the  most  interested  spec 
tator.  Maybe  I  would  see  that  wonderful  thing, 
a  man  killed.  Anyway,  I  would  see  a  man-fight. 
Great  was  my  disappointment.  Black  Matt  and 
Tom  Morrisey  merely  held  on  to  each  other  and 
lifted  their  clumsy-booted  feet  in  what  seemed 
a  grotesque,  elephantine  dance.  They  were  too 
drunk  to  fight.  Then  the  peacemakers  got  hold 
of  them  and  led  them  back  to  cement  the  new 
friendship  in  the  kitchen. 

Soon  they  were  all  talking  at  once,  rumbling 
and  roaring  as  big-chested  open-air  men  will  when 
whisky  has  whipped  their  taciturnity.  And  I, 
a  little  shaver  of  seven,  my  heart  in  my  mouth, 
my  trembling  body  strung  tense  as  a  deer's  on 
the  verge  of  flight,  peered  wonderingly  in  at  the 
open  door  and  learned  more  of  the  strangeness  of 

23 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

men.  And  I  marveled  at  Black  Matt  and  Tom 
Morrisey,  sprawled  over  the  table,  arms  about 
each  other's  necks,  weeping  lovingly. 

The  kitchen-drinking  continued,  and  the  girls 
outside  grew  timorous.  They  knew  the  drink 
game,  and  all  were  certain  that  something  ter 
rible  was  going  to  happen.  They  protested  that 
they  did  not  wish  to  be  there  when  it  happened, 
and  some  one  suggested  going  to  a  big  Italian 
rancho  four  miles  away,  where  they  could  get  up 
a  dance.  Immediately  they  paired  off,  lad  and 
lassie,  and  started  down  the  sandy  road.  And 
each  lad  walked  with  his  sweetheart — trust  a 
child  of  seven  to  listen  and  to  know  the  love  af 
fairs  of  his  countryside.  And  behold,  I,  too,  was 
a  lad  with  a  lassie.  A  little  Irish  girl  of  my  own 
age  had  been  paired  off  with  me.  We  were  the 
only  children  in  this  spontaneous  affair.  Per 
haps  the  oldest  couple  might  have  been  twenty. 
There  were  chits  of  girls,  quite  grown  up,  of  four 
teen  and  sixteen,  walking  with  their  fellows. 
But  we  were  uniquely  young,  this  little  Irish  girl 
and  I,  and  we  walked  hand  in  hand,  and,  some 
times,  under  the  tutelage  of  our  elders,  with  my 
arm  around  her  waist.  Only  that  was  n't  com 
fortable.  And  I  was  very  proud,  on  that  bright 

24 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

Sunday  morning,  going  down  the  long  bleak  road 
among  the  sandhills.  I,  too,  had  my  girl,  and 
was  a  little  man. 

The  Italian  rancho  was  a  bachelor  establish 
ment.  Our  visit  was  hailed  with  delight.  The 
red  wine  was  poured  in  tumblers  for  all,  and  the 
long  dining-room  was  partly  cleared  for  dancing. 
And  the  young  fellows  drank  and  danced  with 
the  girls  to  the  strains  of  an  accordeon.  To  me 
that  music  was  divine.  I  had  never  heard  any 
thing  so  glorious.  The  young  Italian  who  fur 
nished  it  would  even  get  up  and  dance,  his  arms 
around  his  girl,  playing  the  accordeon  behind  her 
back.  All  of  which  was  very  wonderful  for  me, 
who  did  not  dance,  but  who  sat  at  a  table  and 
gazed  wide-eyed  at  the  amazingness  of  life.  I 
was  only  a  little  lad,  and  there  was  so  much  of 
life  for  me  to  learn.  As  the  time  passed,  the 
Irish  lads  began  helping  themselves  to  the  wine, 
and  jollity  and  high  spirits  reigned.  I  noted 
that  some  of  them  staggered  and  fell  down  in  the 
dances,  and  that  one  had  gone  to  sleep  in  a  corner. 
Also,  some  of  the  girls  were  complaining  and 
wanting  to  leave,  and  others  of  the  girls  were  tit- 
teringly  complacent,  willing  for  anything  to  hap 
pen. 

25 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

When  our  Italian  hosts  had  offered  me  wine  in 
a  general  sort  of  way,  I  had  declined.  My  beer 
experience  had  been  enough  for  me,  and  I  had  no 
inclination  to  traffic  further  in  the  stuff  nor  in 
anything  related  to  it.  Unfortunately,  one  young 
Italian,  Peter,  an  impish  soul,  seeing  me  sitting 
solitary,  stirred  by  a  whim  of  the  moment,  half- 
filled  a  tumbler  with  wine  and  passed  it  to  me. 
He  was  sitting  across  the  table  from  me.  I  de 
clined.  His  face  grew  stern,  and  he  insistently 
proffered  the  wine.  And  then  terror  descended 
upon  me — a  terror  which  I  must  explain. 

My  mother  had  theories.  First,  she  steadfastly 
maintained  that  brunettes  and  all  the  tribe  of 
dark-eyed  humans  were  deceitful.  Needless  to 
say,  my  mother  was  a  blond.  Next,  she  was  con 
vinced  that  the  dark-eyed  Latin  races  were  pro 
foundly  sensitive,  profoundly  treacherous,  and 
profoundly  murderous.  Again  and  again,  drink 
ing  in  the  strangeness  and  the  fearsomeness  of  the 
world  from  her  lips,  I  had  heard  her  state  that  if 
one  offended  an  Italian,  no  matter  how  slightly 
and  unintentionally,  he  was  certain  to  retaliate  by 
stabbing  one  in  the  back.  That  was  her  particu 
lar  phrase — "stab  you  in  the  back." 

26 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

Now,  although  I  had  been  eager  to  see  Black 
Matt  kill  Tom  Morrisey  that  morning,  I  did  not 
care  to  furnish  to  the  dancers  the  spectacle  of  a 
knife  sticking  in  my  back.  I  had  not  yet  learned 
to  distinguish  between  facts  and  theories.  My 
faith  was  implicit  in  my  mother's  exposition  of 
the  Italian  character.  Besides,  I  had  some  glim 
mering  inkling  of  the  sacredness  of  hospitality. 
Here  was  a  treacherous,  sensitive,  murderous  Ital 
ian,  offering  me  hospitality.  I  had  been  taught 
to  believe  that  if  I  offended  hirri  he  would  strike 
at  me  with  a  knife  precisely  as  a  horse  kicked  out 
when  one  got  too  close  to  its  heels  and  worried 
it.  Then,  too,  this  Italian,  Peter,  had  those  ter 
rible  black  eyes  I  had  heard  my  mother  talk 
about.  They  were  eyes  different  from  the  eyes 
I  knew,  from  the  blues  and  grays  and  hazels  of 
my  own  family,  from  the  pale  and  genial  blues 
of  the  Irish.  Perhaps  Peter  had  had  a  few 
drinks.  At  any  rate  his  eyes  were  brilliantly 
black  and  sparkling  with  deviltry.  They  were 
the  mysterious,  the  unknown,  and  who  was  I,  a 
seven-year-old,  to  analyze  them  and  know  their 
prankishness?  In  them  I  visioned  sudden  death, 
and  I  declined  the  wine  half-heartedly.  The  ex- 

27 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

pression  in  his  eyes  changed.  They  grew  stern 
and  imperious  as  he  shoved  the  tumbler  of  wine 
closer. 

What  could  I  do^  I  have  faced  real  death 
since  in  my  life,  but  never  have  I  known  the  fear 
of  death  as  I  knew  it  then.  I  put  the  glass  to  my 
lips,  and  Peter's  eyes  relented.  I  knew  he  would 
not  kill  me  just  then.  That  was  a  relief.  But 
the  wine  was  not.  It  was  cheap,  new  wine,  bitter 
and  sour,  made  of  the  leavings  and  scrapings  of 
the  vineyards  and  the  vats,  and  it  tasted  far 
worse  than  beer.  There  is  only  one  way  to  take 
medicine,  and  that  is  to  take  it.  And  that  is  the 
way  I  took  that  wine.  I  threw  my  head  back 
and  gulped  it  down.  I  had  to  gulp  again  and 
hold  the  poison  down,  for  poison  it  was  to  my 
child's  tissues  and  membranes. 

Looking  back  now,  I  can  realize  that  Peter  was 
astounded.  He  half-filled  a  second  tumbler  and 
shoved  it  across  the  table.  Frozen  with  fear,  in 
despair  at  the  fate  which  had  befallen  me,  I 
gulped  the  second  glass  down  like  the  first.  This 
was  too  much  for  Peter.  He  must  share  the  in 
fant  prodigy  he  had  discovered.  He  called 
Dominick,  a  young  mustached  Italian,  to  see  the 
sight.  This  time  it  was  a  full  tumbler  that  was 

28 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

given  me.  One  will  do  anything  to  live.  I 
gripped  myself,  mastered  the  qualms  that  rose  in 
my  throat,  and  downed  the  stuff. 

Dominick  had  never  seen  an  infant  of  such 
heroic  caliber.  Twice  again  he  refilled  the  tum 
bler,  each  time  to  the  brim,  and  watched  it  disap 
pear  down  my  throat.  By  this  time  my  exploits 
were  attracting  attention.  Middle-aged  Italian 
laborers,  old-country  peasants  who  did  not  talk 
English  and  who  could  not  dance  with  the  Irish 
girls,  surrounded  me.  They  were  swarthy  and 
wild-looking;  they  wore  belts  and  red  shirts;  and 
I  knew  they  carried  knives;  and  they  ringed  me 
around  like  a  pirate  chorus.  And  Peter  and  Dom 
inick  made  me  show  off  for  them. 

Had  I  lacked  imagination,  had  I  been  stupid, 
had  I  been  stubbornly  mulish  in  having  my  own 
way,  I  should  never  have  got  in  this  pickle.  And 
the  lads  and  lassies  were  dancing,  and  there  was 
no  one  to  save  me  from  my  fate.  How  much  I 
drank  I  do  not  know.  My  memory  of  it  is  of 
an  age-long  suffering  of  fear  in  the  midst  of  a 
murderous  crew,  and  of  an  infinite  number  of 
glasses  of  red  wine  passing  across  the  bare  boards 
of  a  wine-drenched  table  and  going  down  my 
burning  throat.  Bad  as  the  wine  was,  a  knife  in 

29 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

the  back  was  worse,  and  I  must  survive  at  any 
cost. 

Looking  back  with  the  drinker's  knowledge,  I 
know  now  why  I  did  not  collapse  stupefied  upon 
the  table.  As  I  have  said,  I  was  frozen,  I  was 
paralyzed,  with  fear.  The  only  movement  I 
made  was  to  convey  that  never-ending  procession 
of  glasses  to  my  lips.  I  was  a  poised  and  mo 
tionless  receptacle  for  all  that  quantity  of  wine. 
It  lay  inert  in  my  fear-inert  stomach.  I  was  too 
frightened,  even,  for  my  stomach  to  turn.  So 
all  that  Italian  crew  looked  on  and  marveled  at 
the  infant  phenomenon  that  downed  wine  with 
the  sang-froid  of  an  automaton.  It  is  not  in  the 
spirit  of  braggadocio  that  I  dare  to  assert  they 
had  never  seen  anything  like  it. 

The  time  came  to  go.  The  tipsy  antics  of  the 
lads  had  led  a  majority  of  the  soberer-minded  las 
sies  to  compel  a  departure.  I  found  myself  at 
the  door,  beside  my  little  maiden.  She  had  not 
had  my  experience,  so  she  was  sober.  She  was 
fascinated  by  the  titubations  of  the  lads  who 
strove  to  walk  beside  their  girls,  and  began  to 
mimic  them.  I  thought  this  a  great  game,  and  I, 
too,  began  to  stagger  tipsily.  But  she  had  no 
wine  to  stir  up,  while  my  movements  quickly 

30 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

set  the  fumes  rising  to  my  head.  Even  at  the 
start,  I  was  more  realistic  than  she.  In  several 
minutes  I  was  astonishing  myself.  I  saw  one 
lad,  after  reeling  half  a  dozen  steps,  pause  at  the 
side  of  the  road,  gravely  peer  into  the  ditch,  and 
gravely,  and  after  apparent  deep  thought,  fall 
into  it.  To  me  this  was  excruciatingly  funny. 
I  staggered  to  the  edge  of  the  ditch,  fully  in 
tending  to  stop  on  the  edge.  I  came  to  myself, 
in  the  ditch,  in  process  of  being  hauled  out  by 
several  anxious-faced  girls. 

I  did  n't  care  to  play  at  being  drunk  any  more. 
There  was  no  more  fun  in  me.  My  eyes  were 
beginning  to  swim,  and  with  wide-open  mouth  I 
panted  for  air.  A  girl  led  me  by  the  hand  on 
either  side,  but  my  legs  were  leaden.  The  alco 
hol  I  had  drunk  was  striking  my  heart  and  brain 
like  a  club.  Had  I  been  a  weakling  of  a  child,  I 
am  confident  that  it  would  have  killed  me.  As  it 
was,  I  know  I  was  nearer  death  than  any  of  the 
scared  girls  dreamed.  I  could  hear  them  bicker 
ing  among  themselves  as  to  whose  fault  it  was; 
some  were  weeping — for  themselves,  for  me,  and 
for  the  disgraceful  way  their  lads  had  behaved. 
But  I  was  not  interested.  I  was  suffocating,  and 
I  wanted  air.  To  move  was  agony.  It  made 

31 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

me  pant  harder.  Yet  those  girls  persisted  in  mak 
ing  me  walk,  and  it  was  four  miles  home.  Four 
miles!  I  remember  my  swimming  eyes  saw  a 
small  bridge  across  the  road  an  infinite  distance 
away.  In  fact,  it  was  not  a  hundred  feet  dis 
tant.  When  I  reached  it,  I  sank  down  and  lay 
on  my  back  panting.  The  girls  tried  to  lift  me, 
but  I  was  helpless  and  suffocating.  Their  cries 
of  alarm  brought  Larry,  a  drunken  youth  of  sev 
enteen,  who  proceeded  to  resuscitate  me  by  jump 
ing  on  my  chest.  Dimly  I  remember  this,  and  the 
squalling  of  the  girls  as  they  struggled  with  him 
and  dragged  him  away.  And  then  I  knew  noth 
ing,  though  I  learned  afterward  that  Larry 
wound  up  under  the  bridge  and  spent  the  night 
there. 

When  I  came  to,  it  was  dark.  I  had  been  car 
ried  unconscious  for  four  miles  and  been  put  to 
bed.  I  was  a  sick  child,  and,  despite  the  terrible 
strain  on  my  heart  and  tissues,  I  continually  re 
lapsed  into  the  madness  of  delirium.  All  the 
content  of  the  terrible  and  horrible  in  my  child's 
mind  spilled  out.  The  most  frightful  visions 
were  realities  to  me.  I  saw  murders  committed, 
and  I  was  pursued  by  murderers.  I  screamed 
and  raved  and  fought.  My  sufferings  were  pro- 

32 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

digious.  Emerging  from  such  delirium,  I  would 
hear  my  mother's  voice:  "But  the  child's  brain. 
He  will  lose  his  reason."  And  sinking  back  into 
delirium,  I  would  take  the  idea  with  me  and  be 
immured  in  madhouses,  and  be  beaten  by  keepers, 
and  surrounded  by  screeching  lunatics.  ,  ,  , 

One  thing  that  had  strongly  impressed  my 
young  mind  was  the  talk  of  my  elders  about  the 
dens  of  iniquity  in  San  Francisco's  Chinatown. 
In  my  delirium  I  wandered  deep  beneath  the 
ground  through  a  thousand  of  these  dens,  and  be 
hind  locked  doors  of  iron  I  suffered  and  died  a 
thousand  deaths.  And  when  I  would  come  upon 
my  father,  seated  at  table  in  these  subterranean 
crypts,  gambling  with  Chinese  for  great  stakes  of 
gold,  all  my  outrage  gave  vent  in  the  vilest  curs 
ing.  I  would  rise  in  bed,  struggling  against  the 
detaining  hands,  and  curse  my  father  till  the 
rafters  rang.  All  the  inconceivable  filth  a  child 
running  at  large  in  a  primitive  countryside  may 
hear  men  utter,  was  mine;  and  though  I  had 
never  dared  utter  such  oaths,  they  now  poured 
from  me,  at  the  top  of  my  lungs,  as  I  cursed  my 
father  sitting  there  underground  and  gambling 
with  long-haired,  long-nailed  Chinamen. 

It  is  a  wonder  that  I  did  not  burst  my  heart 

33 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

or  brain  that  night.  A  seven-year-old  child's  ar 
teries  and  nerve-centers  are  scarcely  fitted  to  en 
dure  the  terrific  paroxysms  that  convulsed  me. 
No  one  slept  in  the  thin,  frame  farmhouse  that 
night  when  John  Barleycorn  had  his  will  of  me. 
And  Larry,  under  the  bridge,  had  no  delirium 
like  mine.  I  am  confident  that  his  sleep  was  stu 
pefied  and  dreamless,  and  that  he  awoke  next  day 
merely  to  heaviness  and  moroseness,  and  that  if 
he  lives  to-day  he  does  not  remember  that  night, 
so  passing  was  it  as  an  incident.  But  my  brain 
was  seared  forever  by  that  experience.  Writing 
now,  thirty  years  afterward,  every  vision  is  as  dis 
tinct,  as  sharp-cut,  every  pain  as  vital  and  terrible, 
as  on  that  night. 

I  was  sick  for  days  afterward,  and  I  needed 
none  of  my  mother's  injunctions  to  avoid  John 
Barleycorn  in  the  future.  My  mother  had  been 
dreadfully  shocked.  She  held  that  I  had  done 
wrong,  very  wrong,  and  that  I  had  gone  contrary 
to  all  her  teaching.  And  how  was  I,  who  was 
never  allowed  to  talk  back,  who  lacked  the  very 
words  with  which  to  express  my  psychology — 
how  was  I  to  tell  my  mother  that  it  was  her  teach 
ing  that  was  directly  responsible  for  my  drunken 
ness1?  Had  it  not  been  for  her  theories  about 

34 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

dark  eyes  and  Italian  character,  I  should  never 
have  wet  my  lips  with  the  sour,  bitter  wine.  And 
not  until  man-grown  did  I  tell  her  the  true  in 
wardness  of  that  disgraceful  affair. 

In  those  after-days  of  sickness,  I  was  confused 
on  some  points,  and  very  clear  on  others.  I  felt 
guilty  of  sin,  yet  smarted  with  a  sense  of  injus 
tice.  It  had  not  been  my  fault;  yet  I  had  done 
wrong.  But  very  clear  was  my  resolution  never 
to  touch  liquor  again.  No  mad  dog  was  ever 
more  afraid  of  water  than  was  I  of  alcohol. 

Yet  the  point  I  am  making  is  that  this  expe 
rience,  terrible  as  it  was,  could  not  in  the  end  de 
ter  me  from  forming  John  Barleycorn's  cheek-by- 
jowl  acquaintance.  All  about  me,  even  then, 
were  the  forces  moving  me  toward  him.  In  the 
first  place,  barring  my  mother,  ever  extreme  in 
her  views,  it  seemed  to  me  all  the  grown-ups 
looked  upon  the  affair  with  tolerant  eyes.  It 
was  a  joke,  something  funny  that  had  happened. 
There  was  no  shame  attached.  Even  the  lads 
and  lassies  giggled  and  snickered  over  their  part 
in  the  affair,  narrating  with  gusto  how  Larry  had 
jumped  on  my  chest  and  slept  under  the  bridge, 
how  So-and-So  had  slept  out  in  the  sandhills  that 
night,  and  what  had  happened  to  the  other  lad 

35 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

who  fell  in  the  ditch.  As  I  say,  so  far  as  I  could 
see,  there  was  no  shame  anywhere.  It  had  been 
something  ticklishly,  devilishly  fine — a  bright 
and  gorgeous  episode  in  the  monotony  of  life  and 
labor  on  that  bleak,  fog-girt  coast. 

The  Irish  ranchers  twitted  me  good-naturedly 
on  my  exploit,  and  patted  me  on  the  back  until  I 
felt  that  I  had  done  something  heroic.  Peter  and 
Dominick  and  the  other  Italians  were  proud  of 
my  drinking  prowess.  The  face  of  morality  was 
not  set  against  drinking.  Besides,  everybody 
drank.  There  was  not  a  teetotaler  in  the  com 
munity.  Even  the  teacher  of  our  little  country 
school,  a  graying  man  of  fifty,  gave  us  vacations  on 
the  occasions  when  he  wrestled  with  John  Bar 
leycorn  and  was  thrown.  Thus  there  was  no 
spiritual  deterrence.  My  loathing  for  alcohol 
was  purely  physiological.  I  did  n't  like  the 
damned  stuff. 


CHAPTER  V 

THIS  physical  loathing  for  alcohol  I  have 
never  got  over.  But  I  have  conquered  it. 
To  this  day  I  re-conquer  it  every  time  I  take  a 
drink.  The  palate  never  ceases  to  rebel,  and  the 
palate  can  be  trusted  to  know  what  is  good  for  the 
body.  But  men  do  not  knowingly  drink  for  the 
effect  alcohol  produces  on  the  body.  What  they 
drink  for  is  the  brain-effect;  and  if  it  must  come 
through  the  body,  so  much  the  worse  for  the  body. 
And  yes,  despite  my  physical  loathing  for  al 
cohol,  the  brightest  spots  in  my  child  life  were 
the  saloons.  Sitting  on  the  heavy  potato  wagons, 
wrapped  in  fog,  feet  stinging  from  inactivity,  the 
horses  plodding  slowly  along  the  deep  road 
through  the  sandhills,  one  bright  vision  made  the 
way  never  too  long.  The  bright  vision  was  the 
saloon  at  Colma,  where  my  father,  or  whoever 
drove,  always  got  out  to  get  a  drink.  And  I  got 
out  to  warm  by  the  great  stove  and  get  a  soda 
cracker.  Just  one  soda  cracker,  but  a  fabulous 

37 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

luxury.  Saloons  were  good  for  something.  Back 
behind  the  plodding  horses,  I  would  take  an  hour 
in  consuming  that  one  cracker.  I  took  the  small 
est  of  nibbles,  never  losing  a  crumb,  and  chewed 
the  nibble  till  it  became  the  thinnest  and  most 
delectable  of  pastes.  I  never  voluntarily  swal 
lowed  this  paste.  I  just  tasted  it,  and  went  on 
tasting  it,  turning  it  over  with  my  tongue,  spread 
ing  it  on  the  inside  of  one  cheek,  then  on  the  inside 
of  the  other  cheek,  until,  at  the  end,  it  eluded  me 
and  in  tiny  drops  and  oozelets  slipped  and  dribbled 
down  my  throat.  Horace  Fletcher  had  nothing 
on  me  when  it  came  to  soda  crackers. 

I  liked  saloons.  Especially  I  liked  the  San 
Francisco  saloons.  They  had  the  most  delicious 
dainties  for  the  taking — strange  breads  and 
crackers,  cheeses,  sausages,  sardines — wonder 
ful  foods  that  I  never  saw  on  our  meager 
home-table.  And  once,  I  remember,  a  barkeeper 
mixed  me  a  sweet  temperance  drink  of  syrup  and 
soda  water.  My  father  did  not  pay  for  it.  It 
was  the  barkeeper's  treat,  and  he  became  my  ideal 
of  a  good,  kind  man.  I  dreamed  day  dreams  of 
him  for  years.  Although  I  was  seven  years  old  at 
the  time,  I  can  see  him  now  with  undiminished 
clearness,  though  I  never  laid  eyes  on  him  but 

38 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

that  one  time.  The  saloon  was  south  of  Market 
Street  in  San  Francisco.  It  stood  on  the  west  side 
of  the  street.  As  you  entered,  the  bar  was  on  the 
left.  On  the  right,  against  the  wall,  was  the  free- 
lunch  counter.  It  was  a  long,  narrow  room,  and 
at  the  rear,  beyond  the  beer  kegs  on  tap,  were 
small  round  tables  and  chairs.  The  barkeeper 
was  blue-eyed,  and  had  fair,  silky  hair  peeping  out 
from  under  a  black  silk  skull-cap.  I  remember 
he  wore  a  brown  Cardigan  jacket,  and  I  know 
precisely  the  spot,  in  the  midst  of  the  array  of  bot 
tles,  from  which  he  took  the  bottle  of  red-colored 
syrup.  He  and  my  father  talked  long,  and  I 
sipped  my  sweet  drink  and  worshiped  him.  And 
for  years  afterward  I  worshiped  the  memory  of 
him. 

Despite  my  two  disastrous  experiences,  here  was 
John  Barleycorn,  prevalent  and  accessible  every 
where  in  the  community,  luring  and  drawing  me. 
Here  were  connotations  of  the  saloon  making  deep 
indentations  in  a  child's  mind.  Here  was  a  child, 
forming  its  first  judgments  of  the  world,  finding 
the  saloon  a  delightful  and  desirable  place. 
Stores,  nor  public  buildings,  nor  all  the  dwellings 
of  men  ever  opened  their  doors  to  me  and  let  me 
warm  by  their  fires  or  permitted  me  to  eat  the 

39 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

food  of  the  gods  from  narrow  shelves  against 
the  wall.  Their  doors  were  ever  closed  to  me ;  the 
saloon's  doors  were  ever  open.  And  always  and 
everywhere  I  found  saloons,  on  highway  and  by 
way,  up  narrow  alleys  and  on  busy  thoroughfares, 
bright-lighted  and  cheerful,  warm  in  winter  and 
in  summer  dark  and  cool.  Yes,  the  saloon  was  a 
mighty  fine  place,  and  it  was  more  than  that. 

By  the  time  I  was  ten  years  old,  my  family  had 
abandoned  ranching  and  gone  to  live  in  the  city. 
And  here,  at  ten,  I  began  on  the  streets  as  a  news 
boy.  One  of  the  reasons  for  this  was  that  we 
needed  the  money.  Another  reason  was  that  I 
needed  the  exercise.  I  had  found  my  way  to  the 
free  public  library,  and  was  reading  myself  into 
nervous  prostration.  On  the  poor-ranches  on 
which  I  had  lived  there  had  been  no  books.  In 
ways  truly  miraculous,  I  had  been  lent  four  books, 
marvelous  books,  and  them  I  had  devoured.  One 
was  the  life  of  Garfield;  the  second,  Paul  du 
Chaillu's  African  travels;  the  third,  a  novel  by 
Ouida  with  the  last  forty  pages  missing;  and  the 
fourth,  Irving's  "Alhambra."  This  last  had  been 
lent  me  by  a  school-teacher.  I  was  not  a  forward 
child.  Unlike  Oliver  Twist,  I  was  incapable  of 
asking  for  more.  When  I  returned  the  "Alham- 

40 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

bra"  to  the  teacher  I  hoped  she  would  lend  me 
another  book.  And  because  she  did  not — most 
likely  she  deemed  me  unappreciative — I  cried  all 
the  way  home  on  the  three-mile  tramp  from  the 
school  to  the  ranch.  I  waited  and  yearned  for 
her  to  lend  me  another  book.  Scores  of  times  I 
nerved  myself  almost  to  the  point  of  asking  her, 
but  never  quite  reached  the  necessary  pitch  of  ef 
frontery. 

And  then  came  the  city  of  Oakland,  and  on  the 
shelves  of  that  free-library  I  discovered  all  the 
great  world  beyond  the  skyline.  Here  were  thou 
sands  of  books  as  good  as  my  four  wonder-books, 
and  some  were  even  better.  Libraries  were  not 
concerned  with  children  in  those  days,  and  I  had 
strange  adventures.  I  remember,  in  the  catalogue, 
being  impressed  by  the  title,  "The  Adventures  of 
Peregrine  Pickle."  I  filled  an  application  blank 
and  the  librarian  handed  me  the  collected  and  en 
tirely  unexpurgated  works  of  Smollet  in  one  huge 
volume.  I  read  everything,  but  principally  his 
tory  and  adventure,  and  all  the  old  travels  and 
voyages.  I  read  mornings,  afternoons,  and 
nights.  I  read  in  bed,  I  read  at  table,  I  read  as 
I  walked  to  and  from  school,  and  I  read  at  recess 
while  the  other  boys  were  playing.  I  began  to 

41 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

get  the  "jerks."     To  everybody  I  replied:     "Go 
away.     You  make  me  nervous." 

And  so,  at  ten,  I  was  out  on  the  streets,  a  news 
boy.  I  had  no  time  to  read.  I  was  busy  getting 
exercise  and  learning  how  to  fight,  busy  learning 
forwardness,  and  brass  and  bluff.  I  had  an  imag 
ination  and  a  curiosity  about  all  things  that  made 
me  plastic.  Not  least  among  the  things  I  was 
curious  about  was  the  saloon.  And  I  was  in  and 
out  of  many  a  one.  I  remember,  in  those  days, 
on  the  east  side  of  Broadway  between  Sixth  and 
Seventh,  from  corner  to  corner,  there  was  a  solid 
block  of  saloons. 

In  the  saloons  life  was  different.  Men  talked 
with  great  voices,  laughed  great  laughs,  and  there 
was  an  atmosphere  of  greatness.  Here  was  some 
thing  more  than  common  every-day  where  nothing 
happened.  Here  life  was  always  very  live,  and, 
sometimes,  even  lurid,  when  blows  were  struck, 
and  blood  was  shed,  and  big  policemen  came 
shouldering  in.  Great  moments,  these,  for  me, 
my  head  filled  with  all  the  wild  and  valiant  fight 
ing  of  the  gallant  adventures  on  sea  and  land. 
There  were  no  big  moments  when  I  trudged  along 
the  street  throwing  my  papers  in  at  doors.  But 
in  the  saloons,  even  the  sots,  stupefied,  sprawling 

42 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

across  the  tables  or  in  the  sawdust,  were  objects 
of  mystery  and  wonder. 

And  more,  the  saloons  were  right.  The  city 
fathers  sanctioned  them  and  licensed  them.  They 
were  not  the  terrible  places  I  heard  boys  deem 
them  who  lacked  my  opportunities  to  know.  Ter 
rible  they  might  be,  but  then  that  only  meant  they 
were  terribly  wonderful,  and  it  is  the  terribly  won 
derful  that  a  boy  desires  to  know.  In  the  same 
way  pirates,  and  shipwrecks,  and  battles  were  ter 
rible;  and  what  healthy  boy  wouldn't  give  his 
immortal  soul  to  participate  in  such  affairs'? 

Besides,  in  saloons  I  saw  reporters,  editors,  law 
yers,  judges,  whose  names  and  faces  I  knew. 
They  put  the  seal  of  social  approval  on  the  saloon. 
They  verified  my  own  feeling  of  fascination  in 
the  saloon.  They,  too,  must  have  found  there 
that  something  different,  that  something  beyond, 
which  I  sensed  and  groped  after.  What  it  was, 
I  did  not  know;  yet  there  it  must  be,  for  there 
men  focused  like  buzzing  flies  about  a  honey  pot. 
I  had  no  sorrows,  and  the  world  was  very  bright, 
so  I  could  not  guess  that  what  these  men  sought 
was  forgetfulness  of  jaded  toil  and  stale  grief. 

Not  that  I  drank  at  that  time.  From  ten  to 
fifteen  I  rarely  tasted  liquor,  but  I  was  intimately 

43 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

in  contact  with  drinkers  and  drinking  places.  The 
only  reason  I  did  not  drink  was  because  I  did  n't 
like  the  stuff.  As  the  time  passed,  I  worked  as 
boy-helper  on  an  ice-wagon,  set  up  pins  in  a  bowl 
ing-alley  with  a  saloon  attached,  and  swept  out 
saloons  at  Sunday  picnic  grounds. 

Big  jovial  Josie  Harper  ran  a  road-house  at 
Telegraph  Avenue  and  Thirty-ninth  Street. 
Here  for  a  year  I  delivered  an  evening  paper,  un 
til  my  route  was  changed  to  the  water-front  and 
tenderloin  of  Oakland.  The  first  month,  when  I 
collected  Josie  Harper's  bill,  she  poured  me  a  glass 
of  wine.  I  was  ashamed  to  refuse,  so  I  drank  it. 
But  after  that  I  watched  the  chance  when  she 
was  n't  around  so  as  to  collect  from  her  barkeeper. 

The  first  day  I  worked  in  the  bowling-alley, 
the  barkeeper,  according  to  custom,  called  us  boys 
up  to  have  a  drink  after  we  had  been  setting  up 
pins  for  several  hours.  The  others  asked  for  beer. 
I  said  I  'd  take  ginger  ale.  The  boys  snickered, 
and  I  noticed  the  barkeeper  favored  me  with  a 
strange,  searching  scrutiny.  Nevertheless  he 
opened  a  bottle  of  ginger  ale.  Afterward,  back 
in  the  alleys,  in  the  pauses  between  games,  the  boys 
enlightened  me.  I  had  offended  the  barkeeper. 
A  bottle  of  ginger  ale  cost  the  saloon  ever  so  much 

44 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

more  than  a  glass  of  steam  beer;  and  it  was  up 
to  me,  if  I  wanted  to  hold  my  job,  to  drink  beer. 
Besides,  beer  was  food.  I  could  work  better  on 
it.  There  was  no  food  in  ginger  ale.  After  that, 
when  I  could  n't  sneak  out  of  it,  I  drank  beer  and 
wondered  what  men  found  in  it  that  was  so  good. 
I  was  always  aware  that  I  was  missing  something. 
What  I  really  liked  in  those  days  was  candy. 
For  five  cents  I  could  buy  five  "cannon-balls" — 
big  lumps  of  the  most  delicious  lastingness.  I 
could  chew  and  worry  a  single  one  for  an  hour. 
Then  there  was  a  Mexican  who  sold  big  slabs  of 
brown  chewing-taffy  for  five  cents  each.  It  re 
quired  a  quarter  of  a  day  properly  to  absorb  one 
of  them.  And  many  a  day  I  made  my  entire 
lunch  off  of  one  of  those  slabs.  In  truth,  I  found 
food  there,  but  not  in  beer. 


CHAPTER  VI 

BUT  the  time  was  rapidly  drawing  near  when 
I  was  to  begin  my  second  series  of  bouts  with 
John  Barleycorn.  When  I  was  fourteen,  my  head 
filled  with  the  tales  of  the  old  voyagers,  my  vision 
with  tropic  isles  and  far  sea-rims,  I  was  sailing  a 
small  centerboard  skiff  around  San  Francisco  Bay 
and  on  the  Oakland  Estuary.  I  wanted  to  go  to 
sea.  I  wanted  to  get  away  from  monotony  and 
the  commonplace.  I  was  in  the  flower  of  my  ado 
lescence,  a-thrill  with  romance  and  adventure, 
dreaming  of  wild  life  in  the  wild  man-world. 
Little  I  guessed  how  all  the  warp  and  woof  of  that 
man-world  was  entangled  with  alcohol. 

So,  one  day,  as  I  hoisted  sail  on  my  skiff,  I  met 
Scotty.  He  was  a  husky  youngster  of  seventeen,  a 
runaway  apprentice,  he  told  me,  from  an  English 
ship  in  Australia.  He  had  just  worked  his  way 
on  another  ship  to  San  Francisco;  and  now  he 
wanted  to  see  about  getting  a  berth  on  a  whaler. 
Across  the  estuary,  near  where  the  whalers  lay, 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

was  lying  the  sloop-yacht  Idler.  The  caretaker 
was  a  harpooner  who  intended  sailing  next  voy 
age  on  the  whale  ship  Bonanza.  Would  I  take 
him,  Scotty,  over  in  my  skiff  to  call  upon  the  har 
pooner? 

Would  I*?  Had  n't  I  heard  the  stories  and  ru 
mors  about  the  Idler? — the  big  sloop  that  had 
come  up  from  the  Sandwich  Islands  where  it  had 
been  engaged  in  smuggling  opium.  And  the  har 
pooner  who  was  caretaker!  How  often  had  I 
seen  him  and  envied  him  his  freedom.  He  never 
had  to  leave  the  water.  He  slept  aboard  the 
Idler  each  night,  while  I  had  to  go  home  upon  the 
land  to  go  to  bed.  The  harpooner  was  only  nine 
teen  years  old  (and  I  have  never  had  anything 
but  his  own  word  that  he  was  a  harpooner) ;  but 
he  had  been  too  shining  and  glorious  a  personality 
for  me  ever  to  address  as  I  paddled  around  the 
yacht  at  a  wistful  distance.  Would  I  take  Scotty, 
the  runaway  sailor,  to  visit  the  harpooner,  on  the 
opium-smuggler  Idler?  Would  I! 

The  harpooner  came  on  deck  to  answer  our  hail, 
and  invited  us  aboard.  I  played  the  sailor  and 
the  man,  fending  off  the  skiff  so  that  it  would  not 
mar  the  yatch's  white  paint,  dropping  the  skiff 
astern  on  a  long  painter,  and  making  the  painter 

47 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

fast  with  two  nonchalant  half-hitches.  We  went 
below.  It  was  the  first  sea-interior  I  had  ever 
seen.  The  clothing  on  the  wall  smelled  musty. 
But  what  of  that?  Was  it  not  the  sea-%ear  of 
men? — leather  jackets  lined  with  corduroy,  blue 
coats  of  pilot  cloth,  sou' westers,  sea-boots,  oil 
skins.  And  everywhere  was  in  evidence  the  econ 
omy  of  space — the  narrow  bunks,  the  swinging 
tables,  the  incredible  lockers.  There  were  the 
tell-tale  compass,  the  sea-lamps  in  their  gimbals, 
the  blue-backed  charts  carelessly  rolled  and  tucked 
away,  the  signal-flags  in  alphabetical  order,  and  a 
mariner's  dividers  jammed  into  the  woodwork  to 
hold  a  calendar.  At  last  I  was  living.  Here  I 
sat,  inside  my  first  ship,  a  smuggler,  accepted  as 
a  comrade  by  a  harpooner  and  a  runaway  English 
sailor  who  said  his  name  was  Scotty. 

The  first  thing  that  the  harpooner,  aged  nine 
teen,  and  the  sailor,  aged  seventeen,  did  to  show 
that  they  were  men,  was  to  behave  like  men.  The 
harpooner  suggested  the  eminent  desirableness  of 
a  drink,  and  Scotty  searched  his  pockets  for  dimes 
and  nickels.  Then  the  harpooner  carried  away  a 
pink  flask  to  be  filled  in  some  blind  pig,  for  there 
were  no  licensed  saloons  in  that  locality.  We 
drank  the  cheap  rotgut  out  of  tumblers.  Was  I 

48 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

any  the  less  strong,  any  the  less  valiant,  than  the 
harpooner  and  the  sailor?  They  were  men. 
They  proved  it  by  the  way  they  drank.  Drink 
was  the  badge  of  manhood.  So  I  drank  with 
them,  drink  by  drink,  raw  and  straight,  though 
the  damned  stuff  could  n't  compare  with  a  stick 
of  chewing  taffy  or  a  delectable  "cannonball."  I 
shuddered  and  swallowed  my  gorge  with  every 
drink,  though  I  manfully  hid  all  such  symptoms. 

Divers  times  we  filled  the  flask  that  afternoon. 
All  I  had  was  twenty  cents,  but  I  put  it  up  like 
a  man,  though  with  secret  regret  at  the  enormous 
store  of  candy  it  could  have  bought.  The  liquor 
mounted  in  the  heads  of  all  of  us,  and  the  talk 
of  Scotty  and  the  harpooner  was  upon  running 
the  Easting  down,  gales  off  the  Horn  and  pam 
peros  off  the  Plate,  lower  topsail  breezes,  south 
erly  busters,  North  Pacific  gales,  and  of  smashed 
whaleboats  in  the  Arctic  ice. 

"You  can't  swim  in  that  ice  water,"  said  the 
harpooner  confidentially  to  me.  "You  double  up 
in  a  minute  and  go  down.  When  a  whale 
smashes  your  boat,  the  thing  to  do  is  to  get  your 
belly  across  an  oar,  so  that  when  the  cold  doubles 
you  you  '11  float." 

"Sure,"  I  said,  with  a  grateful  nod  and  an  air 

49 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

of  certitude  that  I,  too,  would  hunt  whales  and 
be  in  smashed  boats  in  the  Arctic  Ocean.  And, 
truly,  I  registered  his  advice  as  singularly  valu 
able  information,  and  filed  it  away  in  my  brain, 
where  it  persists  to  this  day. 

But  I  couldn't  talk — at  first.  Heavens!  I 
was  only  fourteen,  and  had  never  been  on  the 
ocean  in  my  life.  I  could  only  listen  to  the  two 
sea-dogs,  and  show  my  manhood  by  drinking  with 
them,  fairly  and  squarely,  drink  and  drink. 

The  liquor  worked  its  will  with  me;  the  talk 
of  Scotty  and  the  harpodner  poured  through  the 
pent  space  of  the  Idler's  cabin  and  through  my 
brain  like  great  gusts  of  wide,  free  wind;  and  in 
imagination  I  lived  my  years  to  come  and  rocked 
over  the  wild,  mad,  glorious  world  on  multitudi 
nous  adventures. 

We  unbent.  Our  inhibitions  and  taciturni 
ties  vanished.  We  were  as  if  we  had  known  each 
other  for  years  and  years,  and  we  pledged  our 
selves  to  years  of  future  voyagings  together.  The 
harpooner  told  of  misadventures  and  secret 
shames.  Scotty  wept  over  his  poor  old  mother 
in  Edinburg — a  lady,  he  insisted,  gently  born — 
who  was  in  reduced  circumstances,  who  had 
pinched  herself  to  pay  the  lump  sum  to  the  ship- 

50 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

owners  for  his  apprenticeship,  whose  sacrificing 
dream  had  been  to  see  him  a  merchantman  officer 
and  a  gentleman,  and  who  was  heartbroken  be 
cause  he  had  deserted  his  ship  in  Australia  and 
joined  another  as  a  common  sailor  before  the  mast. 
And  Scotty  proved  it.  He  drew  her  last  sad  let 
ter  from  his  pocket  and  wept  over  it  as  he  read 
it  aloud.  The  harpooner  and  I  wept  with  him, 
and  swore  that  all  three  of  us  would  ship  on  the 
whaleship  Bonanza,  win  a  big  pay-day,  and,  still 
together,  make  a  pilgrimage  to  Edinburg  and  lay 
our  store  of  money  in  the  dear  lady's  lap. 

And,  as  John  Barleycorn  heated  his  way  into  my 
brain,  thawing  my  reticence,  melting  my  modesty, 
talking  through  me  and  with  me  and  as  me,  my 
adopted  twin  brother  and  alter  ego,  I,  too,  raised 
my  voice  to  show  myself  a  man  and  an  adven 
turer,  and  bragged  in  detail  and  at  length  of  how 
I  had  crossed  San  Francisco  Bay  in  my  open  skiff 
in  a  roaring  southwester  when  even  the  schooner 
sailors  doubted  my  exploit.  Further,  I — or  John 
Barleycorn,  for  it  was  the  same  thing — told  Scotty 
that  he  might  be  a  deep  sea  sailor  and  know  the 
last  rope  on  the  great  deep  sea  ships,  but  that  when 
it  came  to  small-boat  sailing  I  could  beat  him 
hands  down  and  sail  circles  around  him. 

51 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

The  best  of  it  was  that  my  assertion  and  brag 
were  true.  With  reticence  and  modesty  present, 
I  could  never  have  dared  tell  Scotty  my  small- 
boat  estimate  of  him.  But  it  is  ever  the  way  of 
John  Barleycorn  to  loosen  the  tongue  and  babble 
the  secret  thought. 

Scotty,  or  John  Barleycorn,  or  the  pair,  was 
very  naturally  offended  by  my  remarks.  Nor 
was  I  loath.  I  could  whip  any  runaway  sailor 
seventeen  years  old.  Scotty  and  I  flared  and 
raged  like  young  cockerels,  until  the  harpooner 
poured  another  round  of  drinks  to  enable  us  to 
forgive  and  make  up.  Which  we  did,  arms  around 
each  other's  necks,  protesting  vows  of  eternal 
friendship — just  like  Black  Matt  and  Tom 
Morrisey,  I  remembered,  in  the  ranch  kitchen  in 
San  Mateo.  And  remembering,  I  knew  that  I 
was  at  last  a  man — despite  my  meager  fourteen 
years — a  man  as  big  and  manly  as  those  two  strap 
ping  giants  who  had  quarreled  and  made  up  on 
that  memorable  Sunday  morning  of  long  ago. 

By  this  time  the  singing  stage  was  reached,  and 
I  joined  Scotty  and  the  harpooner  in  snatches  of 
sea  songs  and  chanties.  It  was  here,  in  the  cabin 
of  the  Idler,  that  I  first  heard  "Blow  the  Man 
Down,"  "Flying  Cloud,"  and  "Whisky,  Johnny, 

52 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

Whisky."  Oh,  it  was  brave.  I  was  beginning 
to  grasp  the  meaning  of  life.  Here  was  no  com 
monplace,  no  Oakland  Estuary,  no  weary  round 
of  throwing  newspapers  at  front  doors,  deliver 
ing  ice,  and  setting  up  ninepins.  All  the  world 
was  mine,  all  its  paths  were  under  my  feet,  and 
John  Barleycorn,  tricking  my  fancy,  enabled  me 
to  anticipate  the  life  of  adventure  for  which  I 
yearned. 

We  were  not  ordinary.  We  were  three  tipsy 
young  gods,  incredibly  wise,  gloriously  genial, 
and  without  limit  to  our  powers.  Ah ! — and  I  say 
it  now,  after  the  years — could  John  Barleycorn 
keep  one  at  such  a  height,  I  should  never  draw  a 
sober  breath  again.  But  this  is  not  a  world  of 
free  freights.  One  pays  according  to  an  iron 
schedule — for  every  strength  the  balanced  weak 
ness  ;  for  every  high  a  corresponding  low ;  for  every 
fictitious  god-like  moment  an  equivalent  time  in 
reptilian  slime.  For  every  feat  of  telescoping 
long  days  and  weeks  of  life  into  mad,  magnificent 
instants,  one  must  pay  with  shortened  life,  and, 
oft-times,  with  savage  usury  added. 

Intenseness  and  duration  are  as  ancient  enemies 
as  fire  and  water.  They  are  mutually  destructive. 
They  cannot  co-exist.  And  John  Barleycorn, 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

mighty  necromancer  though  he  be,  is  as  much  a 
slave  to  organic  chemistry  as  we  mortals  are.  We 
pay  for  every  nerve  Marathon  we  run,  nor  can 
John  Barleycorn  intercede  and  fend  off  the  just 
payment.  He  can  lead  us  to  the  heights,  but  he 
cannot  keep  us  there,  else  would  we  all  be  devo 
tees.  And  there  is  no  devotee  but  pays  for  the 
mad  dances  John  Barleycorn  pipes. 

Yet  the  foregoing  is  all  in  after-wisdom  spoken. 
It  was  no  part  of  the  knowledge  of  the  lad,  four 
teen  years  old,  who  sat  in  the  Idler's  cabin  be 
tween  the  harpooner  and  the  sailor,  the  air  rich 
in  his  nostrils  with  the  musty  smell  of  men's  sea- 
gear,  roaring  in  chorus:  "Yankee  ship  come 
down  de  ribber — Pull,  my  bully  boys,  pull !" 

We  grew  maudlin,  and  all  talked  and  shouted 
at  once.  I  had  a  splendid  constitution,  a  stomach 
that;  would  digest  scrap-iron,  and  I  was  still  run 
ning  my  Marathon  in  full  vigor  when  Scotty  be 
gan  to  fail  and  fade.  His  talk  grew  incoherent. 
He  groped  for  words  and  could  not  find  them, 
while  the  ones  he  found  his  lips  were  unable  to 
form.  His  poisoned  consciousness  was  leaving 
him.  The  brightness  went  out  of  his  eyes,  and  he 
looked  as  stupid  as  were  his  efforts  to  talk.  His 
face  and  body  sagged  as  his  consciousness  sagged. 

54 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

(A  man  cannot  sit  upright  save  by  an  act  of  will). 
Scotty's  reeling  brain  could  not  control  his 
muscles.  All  his  correlations  were  breaking  down. 
He  strove  to  take  another  drink,  and  feebly 
dropped  the  tumbler  on  the  floor.  Then,  to  my 
amazement,  weeping  bitterly,  he  rolled  into  a 
bunk  on  his  back  and  immediately  snored  off  to 
sleep. 

The  harpooner  and  I  drank  on,  grinning  in  a 
superior  way  to  each  other  over  Scotty's  plight. 
The  last  flask  was  opened,  and  we  drank  it  be 
tween  us,  to  the  accompaniment  of  Scotty's  ster 
torous  breathing.  Then  the  harpooner  faded 
away  into  his  bunk,  and  I  was  left  alone,  un- 
thrown,  on  the  field  of  battle. 

I  was  very  proud,  and  John  Barleycorn  was 
proud  with  me.  I  could  carry  my  drink.  I  was 
a  man.  I  had  drunk  two  men,  drink  for  drink, 
into  unconsciousness.  And  I  was  still  on  my  two 
feet,  upright,  making  my  way  on  deck  to  get  air 
into  my  scorching  lungs.  It  was  in  this  bout  on 
the  Idler  that  I  discovered  what  a  good  stomach 
and  a  strong  head  I  had  for  drink — a  bit  of  knowl 
edge  that  was  to  be  a  source  of  pride  in  succeed 
ing  years,  and  that  ultimately  I  was  to  come  to 
consider  a  great  affliction.  The  fortunate  man 

55 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

is  the  one  who  cannot  take  more  than  a  couple  of 
drinks  without  becoming  intoxicated.  The  un 
fortunate  wight  is  the  one  who  can  take  many 
glasses  without  betraying  a  sign;  who  must  take 
numerous  glasses  in  order  to  get  the  "kick." 

The  sun  was  setting  when  I  came  on  the  Idler's 
deck.  There  were  plenty  of  bunks  below.  I  did 
not  need  to  go  home.  But  I  wanted  to  demon 
strate  to  myself  how  much  I  was  a  man.  There 
lay  my  skiff  astern.  The  last  of  a  strong  ebb  was 
running  out  in  channel  in  the  teeth  of  an  ocean 
breeze  of  forty  miles  an  hour.  I  could  see  the 
stiff  whitecaps,  and  the  suck  and  run  of  the  cur 
rent  was  plainly  visible  in  the  face  and  trough  of 
each  one. 

I  set  sail,  cast  off,  took  my  place  at  the  tiller, 
the  sheet  in  my  hand,  and  headed  across  channel. 
The  skiff  heeled  over  and  plunged  into  it  madly. 
The  spray  began  to  fly.  I  was  at  the  pinnacle  of 
exaltation.  I  sang  "Blow  the  Man  Down"  as  I 
sailed.  I  was  no  boy  of  fourteen,  living  the  me 
diocre  ways  of  the  sleepy  town  called  Oakland.  I 
was  a  man,  a  god,  and  the  very  elements  rendered 
me  allegiance  as  I  bitted  them  to  my  will. 

The  tide  was  out.  A  full  hundred  yards  of 
soft  mud  intervened  between  the  boat  wharf  and 

56 


I  was  a  man,  a  god 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

the  water.  I  pulled  up  my  center-board,  ran  full 
tilt  into  the  mud,  took  in  sail,  and,  standing  in  the 
stern  as  I  had  often  done  at  low  tide,  I  began  to 
shove  the  skiff  with  an  oar.  It  was  then  that  my 
correlations  began  to  break  down.  I  lost  my  bal 
ance  and  pitched  headforemost  into  the  ooze. 
Then,  and  for  the  first  time,  as  I  floundered  to  my 
feet  covered  with  slime,  the  blood  running  down 
my  arms  from  a  scrape  against  a  barnacled  stake, 
I  knew  that  I  was  drunk.  But  what  of  it? 
Across  the  channel  two  strong  sailormen  lay  un 
conscious  in  their  bunks  where  I  had  drunk  them. 
I  was  a  man.  I  was  still  on  my  legs,  if  they  were 
knee  deep  in  mud.  I  disdained  to  get  back  into 
the  skiff.  I  waded  through  the  mud,  shoving  the 
skiff  before  me  and  yammering  the  chant  of  my 
manhood  to  the  world. 

I  paid  for  it.  I  was  sick  for  a  couple  of  days, 
meanly  sick,  and  my  arms  were  painfully  poisoned 
from  the  barnacle  scratches.  For  a  week  I  could 
not  use  them,  and  it  was  a  torture  to  put  on  and 
take  off  my  clothes. 

I  swore,  "Never  again!"  The  game  wasn't 
worth  it.  The  price  was  too  stiff.  I  had  no 
moral  qualms.  My  revulsion  was  purely  physi 
cal.  No  exalted  moments  were  worth  such  hours 

59 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

of  misery  and  wretchedness.  When  I  got  back  to 
my  skiff,  I  shunned  the  Idler.  I  would  cross  the 
opposite  side  of  the  channel  to  go  around  her. 
Scotty  had  disappeared.  The  harpooner  was 
still  about,  but  him  I  avoided.  Once,  when  he 
landed  on  the  boat- wharf,  I  hid  in  a  shed  so  as  to 
escape  seeing  him.  I  was  afraid  he  would  pro 
pose  some  more  drinking,  maybe  have  a  flask  full 
of  whisky  in  his  pocket. 

And  yet — and  here  enters  the  necromancy  of 
John  Barleycorn — that  afternoon's  drunk  on  the 
Idler  had  been  a  purple  passage  flung  into  the  mo 
notony  of  my  days.  It  was  memorable.  My 
mind  dwelt  on  it  continually.  I  went  over  the 
details,  over  and  over  again.  Among  other 
things,  I  had  got  into  the  cogs  and  springs  of 
men's  actions.  I  had  seen  Scotty  weep  about  his 
own  worthlessness  and  the  sad  case  of  his  Edin- 
burg  mother  who  was  a  lady.  The  harpooner 
had  told  me  terribly  wonderful  things  of  himself. 
I  had  caught  a  myriad  enticing  and  inflammatory 
hints  of  a  world  beyond  my  world,  and  for  which 
I  was  certainly  as  fitted  as  the  two  lads  who  had 
drunk  with  me.  I  had  got  behind  men's  souls. 
I  had  got  behind  my  own  soul  and  found  un- 
guessed  potencies  and  greatnesses. 

60 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

Yes,  that  day  stood  out  above  all  my  other 
days.  To  this  dav  it  so  stands  out.  The  memory 
of  it  is  branded  in  my  brain.  But  the  price  ex 
acted  was  too  high.  I  refused  to  play  and  pay, 
and  returned  to  my  cannonballs  and  taffy-slabs. 
The  point  is  that  all  the  chemistry  of  my  healthy, 
normal  body  drove  me  away  from  alcohol.  The 
stuff  did  n't  agree  with  me.  It  was  abominable. 
But  despite  this,  circumstance  was  to  continue  to 
drive  me  toward  John  Barleycorn,  to  drive  me 
again  and  again,  until,  after  long  years,  the  time 
should  come  when  I  would  look  up  John  Barley 
corn  in  every  haunt  of  men — look  him  up  and 
hail  him  gladly  as  benefactor  and  friend.  And 
detest  and  hate  him  all  the  time.  Yes,  he  is  a 
strange  friend,  John  Barleycorn. 


6l 


CHAPTER  VII 

I  WAS  barely  turned  fifteen,  and  working  long 
hours  in  a  cannery.  Month  in  and  month 
out,  the  shortest  day  I  ever  worked  was  ten  hours. 
When  to  ten  hours  of  actual  work  at  a  machine 
is  added  the  noon  hour;  the  walking  to  work  and 
walking  home  from  work;  the  getting  up  in  the 
morning,  dressing,  and  eating;  the  eating  at  night, 
undressing,  and  going  to  bed,  there  remains  no 
more  than  the  nine  hours  out  of  the  twenty-four 
required  by  a  healthy  youngster  for  sleep.  Out 
of  those  nine  hours,  after  I  was  in  bed  and  ere  my 
eyes  drowsed  shut,  I  managed  to  steal  a  little  time 
for  reading. 

But  many  a  night  I  did  not  knock  off  work  un 
til  midnight.  On  occasion  I  worked  eighteen  and 
twenty  hours  on  a  stretch.  Once  I  worked  at  my 
machine  for  thirty-six  consecutive  hours.  And 
there  were  weeks  on  end  when  I  never  knocked  off 
work  earlier  than  eleven  o'clock,  got  home  and  in 
bed  at  half  after  midnight,  and  was  called  at  half- 

62 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

past  five  to  dress,  eat,  walk  to  work,  and  be  at  my 
machine  at  seven  o'clock  whistle  blow. 

No  moments  here  to  be  stolen  for  my  beloved 
books.  And  what  had  John  Barleycorn  to  do 
with  so  strenuous,  Stoic  toil  of  a  lad  just  turned 
fifteen?  He  had  everything  to  do  with  it.  Let 
me  show  you.  I  asked  myself  if  this  were  the 
meaning  of  life — to  be  a  work-beast?  I  knew  of 
no  horse  in  the  city  of  Oakland  that  worked  the 
hours  I  worked.  If  this  were  living,  I  was  en 
tirely  unenamored  of  it.  I  remembered  my  skiff, 
lying  idle  and  accumulating  barnacles  at  the  boat- 
wharf;  I  remembered  the  wind  that  blew  every 
day  on  the  bay,  the  sunrises  and  surisets  I  never 
saw;  the  bite  of  the  salt  air  in  my  nostrils,  the 
bite  of  the  salt  water  on  my  flesh  when  I  plunged 
overside;  I  remembered  all  the  beauty  and  the 
wonder  and  the  sense-delights  of  the  world  denied 
me.  There  was  only  one  way  to  escape  my  dead 
ening  toil.  I  must  get  out  and  away  on  the 
water.  I  must  earn  my  bread  on  the  water.  And 
the  way  of  the  water  led  inevitably  to  John  Bar 
leycorn.  I  did  not  know  this.  And  when  I  did 
learn  it,  I  was  courageous  enough  not  to  retreat 
back  to  my  bestial  life  at  the  machine. 

I  wanted  to  be  where  the  winds  of  adventure 

63 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

blew.  And  the  winds  of  adventure  blew  the 
oyster  pirate  sloops  up  and  down  San  Francisco 
Bay,  from  raided  oyster-beds  and  fights  at  night 
on  shoal  and  flat,  to  markets  in  the  morning 
against  city  wharves,  where  peddlers  and  saloon 
keepers  came  down  to  buy.  Every  raid  on  an 
oyster-bed  was  a  felony.  The  penalty  was  state 
imprisonment,  the  stripes  and  the  lockstep.  And 
what  of  that4?  The  men  in  stripes  worked  a 
shorter  day  than  I  at  my  machine.  And  there 
was  vastly  more  romance  in  being  an  oyster  pi 
rate  or  a  convict  than  in  being  a  machine  slave. 
And  behind  it  all,  behind  all  of  me  with  youth 
a-bubble,  whispered  Romance,  Adventure. 

So  I  interviewed  my  Mammy  Jennie,  my  old 
nurse  at  whose  black  breast  I  had  suckled.  She 
was  more  prosperous  than  my  folks.  She  was 
nursing  sick  people  at  a  good  weekly  wage. 
Would  she  lend  her  "white  child"  the  money? 
Would  she?  What  she  had  was  mine. 

Then  I  sought  out  French  Frank,  the  oyster 
pirate,  who  wanted  to  sell,  I  had  heard,  his  sloop, 
the  Razzle  Dazzle.  I  found  him  lying  at  anchor 
on  the  Alameda  side  of  the  estuary,  near  the  Web 
ster  Street  bridge,  with  visitors  aboard,  whom  he 
was  entertaining  with  afternoon  wine.  He  came 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

on  deck  to  talk  business.  He  was  willing  to  sell. 
But  it  was  Sunday.  Besides,  he  had  guests.  On 
the  morrow  he  would  make  out  the  bill  of  sale 
and  I  could  enter  into  possession.  And  in  the 
meantime  I  must  come  below  and  meet  his  friends. 
They  were  two  sisters,  Mamie  and  Tess;  a  Mrs. 
Hadley,  who  chaperoned  them;  "Whisky"  Bob, 
a  youthful  oyster  pirate  of  sixteen;  and  "Spider" 
Healey,  a  black-whiskered  wharf-rat  of  twenty. 
Mamie,  who  was  Spider's  niece,  was  called  the 
Queen  of  the  Oyster  Pirates,  and,  on  occasion,  pre 
sided  at  their  revels.  French  Frank  was  in  love 
with  her,  though  I  did  not  know  it  at  the  time; 
and  she  steadfastly  refused  to  marry  him. 

French  Frank  poured  a  tumbler  of  red  wine 
from  a  big  demijohn  to  drink  to  our  transaction. 
I  remembered  the  red  wine  of  the  Italian  rancho, 
and  shuddered  inwardly.  Whisky  and  beer  were 
not  quite  so  repulsive.  But  the  Queen  of  the 
Oyster  Pirates  was  looking  at  me,  a  part-emptied 
glass  in  her  own  hand.  I  had  my  pride.  If  I 
was  only  fifteen,  at  least  I  could  not  show  myself 
any  less  a  man  than  she.  Besides,  there  were  her 
sister,  and  Mrs.  Hadley,  and  the  young  oyster 
pirate,  and  the  whiskered  wharf-rat,  all  with 
glasses  in  their  hands.  Was  I  a  milk  and  water 

65 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

sop4?     No;  a  thousand  times  no,  and  a  thousand 
glasses  no.     I  downed  the  tumblerful  like  a  man. 

French  Frank  was  elated  by  the  sale,  which  I 
had  bound  with  a  twenty-dollar  goldpiece.  He 
poured  more  wine.  I  had  learned  my  strong  head 
and  stomach,  and  I  was  certain  I  could  drink  with 
them  in  a  temperate  way  and  not  poison  myself 
for  a  week  to  come.  I  could  stand  as  much  as 
they ;  and  besides,  they  had  already  been  drinking 
for  some  time. 

We  got  to  singing.  Spider  sang  "The  Boston 
Burglar"  and  "Black  Lulu."  The  Queen  sang 
"Then  I  Wisht  I  were  a  Little  Bird."  And  her 
sister  Tess  sang  "Oh,  Treat  My  Daughter 
Kind-i-ly."  The  fun  grew  fast  and  furious.  I 
found  myself  able  to  miss  drinks  without  being 
noticed  or  called  to  account.  Also,  standing  in 
the  companionway,  head  and  shoulders  out  and 
glass  in  hand,  I  could  fling  the  wine  overboard. 

I  reasoned  something  like  this:  It  is  a  queer- 
ness  of  these  people  that  they  like  this  vile-tasting 
wine.  Well,  let  them.  I  cannot  quarrel  with 
their  tastes.  My  manhood,  according  to  their 
queer  notions,  must  compel  me  to  appear  to  like 
this  wine.  Very  well.  I  shall  so  appear.  But 
I  shall  drink  no  more  than  is  unavoidable, 

66 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

And  the  Queen  began  to  make  love  to  me,  the 
latest  recruit  to  the  oyster  pirate  fleet,  and  no  mere 
hand,  but  a  master  and  owner.  She  went  upon 
deck  to  take  the  air,  and  took  me  with  her.  She 
knew,  of  course,  but  I  never  dreamed,  how  French 
Frank  was  raging  down  below.  Then  Tess 
joined  us,  sitting  on  the  cabin;  and  Spider,  and 
Bob;  and  at  the  last,  Mrs.  Hadley  and  French 
Frank.  And  we  sat  there,  glasses  in  hand,  and 
sang,  while  the  big  demijohn  went  around;  and 
I  was  the  only  strictly  sober  one. 

And  I  enjoyed  it  as  no  one  of  them  was  able 
to  enjoy  it.  Here,  in  this  atmosphere  of  bohe- 
mianism,  I  could  not  but  contrast  the  scene  with 
my  scene  of  the  day  before,  sitting  at  my  machine, 
in  the  stifling,  shut-in  air,  repeating,  endlessly  re 
peating,  at  top  speed,  my  series  of  mechanical  mo 
tions.  And  here  I  sat  now,  glass  in  hand,  in 
warm-glowing  camaraderie,  with  the  oyster  pi 
rates,  adventurers  who  refused  to  be  slaves  to 
petty  routine,  who  flouted  restrictions  and  the 
law,  who  carried  their  lives  and  their  liberty  in 
their  hands.  And  it  was  through  John  Barley 
corn  that  I  came  to  join  this  glorious  company  of 
free  souls,  unashamed  and  unafraid. 

And  the  afternoon  sea  breeze  blew  its  tang  into 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

my  lungs,  and  curled  the  waves  in  mid-channel. 
Before  it  came  the  scow  schooners,  wing-and-wing, 
blowing  their  horns  for  the  drawbridges  to  open. 
Red-stacked  tugs  tore  by,  rocking  the  Razzle 
Dazzle  in  the  waves  of  their  wake.  A  sugar  bark 
towed  from  the  "boneyard"  to  sea.  The  sun- 
wash  was  on  the  crisping  water,  and  life  was  big. 
And  Spider  sang: 

"Oh,  it's  Lulu,  black  Lulu,  my  darling, 
Oh,  it's  where  have  you  been  so  long? 

Been  layin'  in  jail, 

A-waitin'  for  bail, 

Till  my  bully  conies  rollin'  along." 

There  it  was,  the  smack  and  slap  of  the  spirit 
of  revolt,  of  adventure,  of  romance,  of  the  things 
forbidden  and  done  defiantly  and  grandly.  And 
I  knew  that  on  the  morrow  I  would  not  go  back 
to  my  machine  at  the  cannery.  To-morrow  I 
would  be  an  oyster  pirate,  as  free  a  freebooter  as 
the  century  and  the  waters  of  San  Francisco  Bay 
would  permit.  Spider  had  already  agreed  to  sail 
with  me  as  my  crew  of  one,  and,  also,  as  cook 
while  I  did  the  deck  work.  We  would  outfit  our 
grub  and  water  in  the  morning,  hoist  the  big  main 
sail  (which  was  a  bigger  piece  of  canvas  than  any 

68 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

I  had  ever  sailed  under),  and  beat  our  way  out 
the  estuary  on  the  first  of  the  sea  breeze  and  the 
last  of  the  ebb.  Then  we  would  slack  sheets,  and 
on  the  first  of  the  flood  run  down  the  bay  to  the 
Asparagus  Islands,  where  we  would  anchor  miles 
off  shore.  And  at  last  my  dream  would  be  real 
ized:  I  would  sleep  upon  the  water.  And  next 
morning  I  would  wake  upon  the  water ;  and  there 
after  all  my  days  and  nights  would  be  on  the 
water. 

And  the  Queen  asked  me  to  row  her  ashore  in 
my  skiff,  when  at  sunset  French  Frank  prepared 
to  take  his  guests  ashore.  Nor  did  I  catch  the 
significance  of  his  abrupt  change  of  plan  when  he 
turned  the  task  of  rowing  his  skiff  over  to  Whisky 
Bob,  himself  remaining  on  board  the  sloop.  Nor 
did  I  understand  Spider's  grinning  side-remark  to 
me:  "Gee!  There's  nothin'  slow  about  you" 
How  could  it  possibly  enter  my  boy's  head  that  a 
grizzled  man  of  fifty  should  be  jealous  of  me? 


CHAPTER  VIII 

WE  met  by  appointment,  early  Monday 
morning,  to  complete  the  deal,  in  Johnny 
Heinhold's  "Last  Chance" — a  saloon,  of  course, 
for  the  transactions  of  men.  I  paid  the  money 
over,  received  the  bill  of  sale,  and  French  Frank 
treated.  This  struck  me  as  an  evident  custom, 
and  a  logical  one — the  seller,  who  receives  the 
money,  to  wet  a  piece  of  it  in  the  establishment 
where  the  trade  was  consummated.  But  to  my 
surprise,  French  Frank  treated  the  house.  He 
and  I  drank,  which  seemed  just;  but  why  should 
Johnny  Heinhold,  who  owned  the  saloon  and 
waited  behind  the  bar,  be  invited  to  drink^  I 
figured  it  immediately  that  he  made  a  profit  on 
the  very  drink  he  drank.  I  could,  in  a  way,  con 
sidering  that  they  were  friends  and  shipmates,  un 
derstand  Spider  and  Whisky  Bob  being  asked  to 
drink;  but  why  should  the  longshoremen,  Bill  Kel 
ly  and  Soup  Kennedy,  be  asked  ? 

Then  there  was  Pat,  the  Queen's  brother,  mak- 
70 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

ing  a  total  of  eight  of  us.  It  was  early  morning 
and  all  ordered  whisky.  What  could  I  do,  here 
in  this  company  of  big  men,  all  drinking  whisky^ 
"Whisky,"  I  said,  with  the  careless  air  of  one  who 
had  said  it  a  thousand  times.  And  such  whisky ! 
I  tossed  it  down.  A-r-r-r-gh !  I  can  taste  it  yet. 

And  I  was  appalled  at  the  price  French  Frank 
had  paid — eighty  cents.  Eighty  cents!  It  was 
an  outrage  to  my  thrifty  soul.  Eighty  cents — 
the  equivalent  of  eight  long  hours  of  my  toil  at 
the  machine,  gone  down  our  throats  and  gone  like 
that,  in  a  twinkling,  leaving  only  a  bad  taste  in 
my  mouth.  There  was  no  discussion  but  that 
French  Frank  was  a  waster. 

I  was  anxious  to  be  gone,  out  into  the  sunshine, 
out  over  the  water  to  my  glorious  boat.  But  all 
hands  lingered.  Even  Spider,  my  crew,  lingered. 
No  hint  broke  through  my  obtuseness  of  why  they 
lingered.  I  have  often  thought  since  of  how  they 
must  have  regarded  me,  the  newcomer  being  wel 
comed  into  their  company,  standing  at  bar  with 
them,  and  not  standing  for  a  single  round  of 
drinks. 

French  Frank,  who,  unknown  to  me,  had  swal 
lowed  his  chagrin  since  the  day  before,  now  that 
the  money  for  the  Razzle  Dazzle  was  in  his  pocket 

71 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

began  to  behave  curiously  toward  me.  I  sensed 
the  change  in  his  attitude,  saw  the  forbidding  glit 
ter  in  his  eyes,  and  wondered.  The  more  I  saw 
of  men,  the  queerer  they  became.  Johnny  Hein- 
hold  leaned  across  the  bar  and  whispered  in  my 
ear:  "He  's  got  it  in  for  you.  Watch  out." 

I  nodded  comprehension  of  his  statement,  and 
acquiescence  in  it,  as  a  man  should  nod  who  knows 
all  about  men.  But  secretly  I  was  perplexed. 
Heavens!  How  was  I,  who  had  worked  hard 
and  read  books  of  adventure,  and  who  was  only 
fifteen  years  old,  who  had  not  dreamed  of  giving 
the  Queen  of  the  Oyster  Pirates  a  second  thought, 
and  who  did  not  know  that  French  Frank  was 
madly  and  Latinly  in  love  with  her — how  was  I 
to  guess  that  I  had  done  him  shame  *?  And  how 
was  I  to  guess  that  the  story  of  how  the  Queen 
had  thrown  him  down  on  his  own  boat,  the  mo 
ment  I  hove  in  sight,  was  already  the  gleeful  gos 
sip  of  the  waterfront  *?  And  by  the  same  token, 
how  was  I  to  guess  that  her  brother  Pat's  offish- 
ness  with  me  was  anything  else  than  temperamen 
tal  gloominess  of  spirit? 

Whisky  Bob  got  me  aside  a  moment.  "Keep 
your  eyes  open,"  he  muttered.  "Take  my  tip. 
French  Frank  Js  ugly.  I  }m  going  up  river  with 

72 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

him  to  get  a  schooner  for  oystering.  When  he 
gets  down  on  the  beds,  watch  out.  He  says  he  '11 
run  you  down.  After  dark,  any  time  he  's  around, 
change  your  anchorage  and  douse  your  riding 
light.  Savve?' 

Oh,  certainly,  I  savve'd.  I  nodded  my  head, 
and  as  one  man  to  another  thanked  him  for  his 
tip;  and  drifted  back  to  the  group  at  the  bar. 
No ;  I  did  not  treat.  I  never  dreamed  that  I  was 
expected  to  treat.  I  left  with  Spider,  and  my 
ears  burn  now  as  I  try  to  surmise  the  things  they 
must  have  said  about  me. 

I  asked  Spider,  in  an  off-hand  way,  what  was 
eating  French  Frank.  "He 's  crazy  jealous  of 
you,"  was  the  answer.  "Do  you  think  so$"  I 
stalled,  and  dismissed  the  matter  as  not  worth 
thinking  about. 

But  I  leave  it  to  any  one — the  swell  of  my  fif- 
teen-years-old  manhood  at  learning  that  French 
Frank,  the  adventurer  of  fifty,  the  sailor  of  all  the 
seas  of  all  the  world,  was  jealous  of  me — and 
jealous  over  a  girl  most  romantically  named  the 
Queen  of  the  Oyster  Pirates.  I  had  read  of  such 
things  in  books,  and  regarded  them  as  personal 
probabilities  of  a  distant  maturity.  Oh,  I  felt  a 
rare  young  devil,  as  we  hoisted  the  big  mainsail 

73 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

that  morning,  broke  out  anchor,  and  filled  away 
close-hauled  on  the  three-mile  beat  to  windward 
out  into  the  bay. 

Such  was  my  escape  from  the  killing  machine- 
toil,  and  my  introduction  to  the  oyster  pirates. 
True,  the  introduction  had  begun  with  drink,  and 
the  life  promised  to  continue  with  drink.  But 
was  I  to  stay  away  from  it  for  such  reason4? 
Wherever  life  ran  free  and  great,  there  men  drank. 
Romance  and  adventure  seemed  always  to  go 
down  the  street  locked  arm  in  arm  with  John 
Barleycorn.  To  know  the  two,  I  must  know  the 
third.  Or  else  I  must  go  back  to  my  free-library 
books  and  read  of  the  deeds  of  other  men  and  do 
no  deeds  of  my  own  save  slave  for  ten  cents  an 
hour  at  a  machine  in  a  cannery. 

No;  I  was  not  to  be  deterred  from  this  brave 
life  on  the  water  by  the  fact  that  the  water- 
dwellers  had  queer  and  expensive  desires  for  beer 
and  wine  and  whisky.  What  if  their  notions  of 
happiness  included  the  strange  one  of  seeing  me 
drink?  When  they  persisted  in  buying  the  stuff 
and  thrusting  it  upon  me,  why,  I  would  drink  it. 
It  was  the  price  I  would  pay  for  their  comradeship. 
And  I  did  n't  have  to  get  drunk.  I  had  not  got 
drunk  the  Sunday  afternoon  I  arranged  to  buy  the 

74 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

Razzle  Dazzle,  despite  the  fact  that  none  of  the 
rest  was  sober.  Well,  I  could  go  on  into  the  fu 
ture  that  way,  drinking  the  stuff  when  it  gave  them 
pleasure  that  I  should  drink  it,  but  carefully 
avoiding  over-drinking. 


CHAPTER  IX 

GRADUAL  as  was  my  development  as  a 
heavy  drinker  among  the  oyster  pirates,  the 
real  heavy  drinking  came  suddenly  and  was  the 
result,  not  of  desire  for  alcohol,  but  of  an  intel 
lectual  conviction. 

The  more  I  saw  of  the  life,  the  more  I  was 
enamored  of  it.  I  can  never  forget  my  thrills, 
the  first  night  I  took  part  in  a  concerted  raid,  when 
we  assembled  on  board  the  Annie — rough  men, 
big  and  unafraid,  and  weazened  wharf  rats,  some 
of  them  ex-convicts,  all  of  them  enemies  of  the 
law  and  meriting  jail,  in  sea-boots  and  sea-gear, 
talking  in  gruff,  low  voices,  and  "Big"  George 
with  revolvers  strapped  about  his  waist  to  show 
that  he  meant  business. 

Oh,  I  know,  looking  back,  that  the  whole  thing 
was  sordid  and  silly.  But  I  was  not  looking  back 
in  those  days  when  I  was  rubbing  shoulders  with 
John  Barleycorn  and  beginning  to  accept  him. 
The  life  was  brave  and  wild,  and  I  was  living  the 
adventure  I  had  read  so  much  about. 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

Nelson,  "Young  Scratch"  they  called  him  to 
distinguish  him  from  "Old  Scratch,"  his  father, 
sailed  in  the  sloop  Reindeer,  partners  with  one 
"Clam."  Clam  was  a  dare-devil,  but  Nelson  was 
a  reckless  maniac.  He  was  twenty  years  old, 
with  the  body  of  a  Hercules.  When  he  was  shot 
in  Benicia,  a  couple  of  years  later,  the  coroner  said 
he  was  the  greatest-shouldered  man  he  had  ever 
seen  laid  on  a  slab. 

Nelson  could  not  read  nor  write.  He  had  been 
"dragged"  up  by  his  father  on  San  Francisco  Bay, 
and  boats  were  second  nature  with  him.  His 
strength  was  prodigious,  and  his  reputation  along 
the  waterfront  for  violence  was  anything  but  sa 
vory.  He  had  Berserker  rages  and  did  mad,  ter 
rible  things.  I  made  his  acquaintance  the  first 
cruise  of  the  Razzle  Dazzle,  and  saw  him  sail  the 
Reindeer  in  a  blow  and  dredge  oysters  all  around 
the  rest  of  us  as  we  lay  at  two  anchors,  troubled 
with  fear  of  going  ashore. 

He  was  some  man,  this  Nelson;  and  when, 
passing  by  the  Last  Chance  saloon,  he  spoke  to 
me,  I  felt  very  proud.  But  try  to  imagine  my 
pride  when  he  promptly  asked  me  in  to  have  a 
drink.  I  stood  at  bar  and  drank  a  glass  of  beer 
with  him,  and  talked  manfully  of  oysters,  and 

77 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

boats,  and  of  the  mystery  of  who  had  put  the  load 
of  buckshot  through  the  Annie's  mainsail. 

We  talked  and  lingered  at  the  bar.  It  seemed 
to  me  strange  that  we  lingered.  We  had  had  our 
beer.  But  who  was  I  to  lead  the  way  outside 
when  great  Nelson  chose  to  lean  against  the  bar*? 
After  a  few  minutes,  to  my  surprise,  he  asked  me 
to  have  another  drink,  which  I  did.  And  still  we 
talked,  and  Nelson  evinced  no  intention  of  leaving 
the  bar. 

Bear  with  me  while  I  explain  the  way  of  my 
reasoning  and  of  my  innocence.  First  of  all,  I 
was  very  proud  to  be  in  the  company  of  Nelson, 
who  was  the  most  heroic  figure  among  the  oyster 
pirates  and  bay  adventurers.  Unfortunately  for 
my  stomach  and  mucous  membranes,  Nelson  had  a 
strange  quirk  of  nature  that  made  him  find  happi 
ness  in  treating  me  to  beer.  I  had  no  moral  dis 
inclination  for  beer,  and  just  because  I  did  n't 
like  the  taste  of  it  and  the  weight  of  it  was  no 
reason  I  should  forego  the  honor  of  his  company. 
It  was  his  whim  to  drink  beer,  and  to  have  me 
drink  beer  with  him.  Very  well,  I  would  put  up 
with  the  passing  discomfort. 

So  we  continued  to  talk  at  bar,  and  to  drink 
beer  ordered  and  paid  for  by  Nelson.  I  think, 

78 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

now,  when  I  look  back  upon  it,  that  Nelson  was 
curious.  He  wanted  to  find  out  just  what  kind 
of  a  gink  I  was.  He  wanted  to  see  how  many 
times  I  'd  let  him  treat  without  offering  to  treat 
in  return. 

After  I  had  drunk  half-a-dozen  glasses,  my  pol 
icy  of  temperateness  in  mind,  I  decided  that  I 
had  had  enough  for  that  time.  So  I  mentioned 
that  I  was  going  aboard  the  Razzle  Dazzle,  then 
lying  at  the  city  wharf  a  hundred  yards  away. 

I  said  good-by  to  Nelson,  and  went  on  down 
the  wharf.  But  John  Barleycorn,  to  the  extent 
of  six  glasses,  went  with  me.  My  brain  tingled 
and  was  very  much  alive.  I  was  uplifted  by  my 
sense  of  manhood.  I,  a  truly-true  oyster  pirate, 
was  going  aboard  my  own  boat  after  hobnobbing 
in  the  Last  Chance  with  Nelson,  the  greatest 
oyster  pirate  of  us  all.  Strong  in  my  brain  was 
the  vision  of  us  leaning  against  the  bar  and  drink 
ing  beer.  And  curious  it  was,  I  decided,  this 
whim  of  nature  that  made  men  happy  in  spending 
good  money  for  beer  for  a  fellow  like  me  who 
did  n't  want  it. 

As  I  pondered  this,  I  recollected  that  several 
times  other  men,  in  couples,  had  entered  the  Last 
Chance,  and  first  one,  then  the  other,  had  treated 

79 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

to  drinks.  I  remembered,  on  the  drunk  on  the 
Idler,  how  Scotty  and  the  harpooner  and  myself 
had  raked  and  scraped  dimes  and  nickels  with 
which  to  buy  the  whisky.  Then  came  my  boy 
code:  when  on  a  day  a  fellow  gave  another  a 
"cannonball"  or  a  chunk  of  taffy,  on  some  other 
day  he  would  expect  to  receive  back  a  cannonball 
or  a  chunk  of  taffy. 

That  was  why  Nelson  had  lingered  at  the  bar. 
Having  bought  a  drink,  he  had  waited  for  me  to 
buy  one.  /  had  let  him  buy  six  drinks  and  never 
once  offered  to  treat.  And  he  was  the  great  Nel 
son!  I  could  feel  myself  blushing  with  shame. 
I  sat  down  on  the  stringer-piece  of  the  wharf  and 
buried  my  face  in  my  hands.  And  the  heat  of 
my  shame  burned  up  my  neck  and  into  my  cheeks 
and  forehead.  I  have  blushed  many  times  in  my 
life,  but  never  have  I  experienced  so  terrible  a 
blush  as  that  one. 

And  sitting  there  on  the  stringer-piece  in  my 
shame,  I  did  a  great  deal  of  thinking  and  trans 
valuing  of  values.  I  had  been  born  poor.  Poor 
I  had  lived.  I  had  gone  hungry  on  occasion.  I 
had  never  had  toys  nor  playthings  like  other  chil 
dren.  My  first  memories  of  life  were  pinched  by 
poverty.  The  pinch  of  poverty  had  been  chronic. 

80 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

I  was  eight  years  old  when  I  wore  my  first  little 
undershirt  actually  sold  in  a  store  across  the 
counter.  And  then  it  had  been  only  one  little  un 
dershirt.  When  it  was  soiled  I  had  to  return  to 
the  awful  home-made  things  until  it  was  washed. 
I  had  been  so  proud  of  it  that  I  insisted  on  wear 
ing  it  without  any  outer  garment.  For  the  first 
time  I  mutinied  against  my  mother — mutinied 
myself  into  hysteria,  until  she  let  me  wear  the 
store  undershirt  so  all  the  world  could  see. 

Only  a  man  who  has  undergone  famine  can 
properly  value  food;  only  sailors  and  desert- 
dwellers  know  the  meaning  of  fresh  water.  And 
only  a  child,  with  a  child's  imagination,  can  come 
to  know  the  meaning  of  things  it  has  been  long 
denied.  I  early  discovered  that  the  only  things 
I  could  have  were  those  I  got  for  myself.  My 
meager  childhood  developed  meagerness.  The 
first  things  I  had  been  able  to  get  for  myself  had 
been  cigarette  pictures,  cigarette  posters,  and  cig 
arette  albums.  I  had  not  had  the  spending  of  the 
money  I  earned,  so  I  traded  "extra"  newspapers 
for  these  treasures.  I  traded  duplicates  with  the 
other  boys,  and  circulating,  as  I  did,  all  about 
town,  I  had  greater  opportunities  for  trading  and 
acquiring. 

81 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

It  was  not  long  before  I  had  complete  every 
series  issued  by  every  cigarette  manufacturer — 
such  as  the  Great  Race  Horses,  Parisian  Beauties, 
Women  of  All  Nations,  Flags  of  All  Nations, 
Noted  Actors,  Champion  Prize  Fighters,  etc. 
And  each  series  I  had  three  different  ways :  in  the 
card  from  the  cigarette  package,  in  the  poster,  and 
in  the  album. 

Then  I  began  to  accumulate  duplicate  sets,  du 
plicate  albums.  I  traded  for  other  things  that 
boys  valued  and  which  they  usually  bought  with 
money  given  them  by  their  parents.  Naturally, 
they  did  not  have  the  keen  sense  of  values  that  I 
had,  who  was  never  given  money  to  buy  anything. 
I  traded  for  postage  stamps,  for  minerals,  for 
curios,  for  birds'  eggs,  for  marbles  (I  had  a  more 
'magnificent  collection  of  agates  than  I  have  ever 
seen  any  other  boy  possess — and  the  nucleus  of  the 
collection  was  a  handful  worth  at  least  three 
dollars  which  I  had 'kept  as  security  for  twenty 
cents  I  loaned  to  a  messenger-boy  who  was  sent  to 
reform  school  before  he  could  redeem  them). 

1 5d  trade  anything  and  everything  for  anything 
else,  and  turn  it  over  in  a  dozen  more  trades  until 
it  was  transmuted  into  something  that  was  worth 
something.  I  was  famous  as  a  trader.  I  was 

82 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

notorious  as  a  miser.  I  could  even  make  a  junk 
man  weep  when  I  had  dealings  with  him.  Other 
boys  called  me  in  to  sell  for  them  their  collections 
of  bottles,  rags,  old  iron,  grain  and  gunny  sacks, 
and  five-gallon  oil-cans — ay,  and  gave  me  a  com 
mission  for  doing  it. 

And  this  was  the  thrifty,  close-fisted  boy,  accus 
tomed  to  slave  at  a  machine  for  ten  cents  an  hour, 
who  sat  on  the  stringer-piece  and  considered  the, 
matter  of  beer  at  five  cents  a  glass  and  gone  in  a 
moment  with  nothing  to  show  for  it.  I  was  now 
with  men  I  admired.  I  was  proud  to  be  with 
them.  Had  all  my  pinching  and  saving  brought 
me  the  equivalent  of  one  of  the  many  thrills  which 
had  been  mine  since  I  came  among  the  oyster 
pirates'?  Then  what  was  worth  while — money 
or  thrills?  These  men  had  no  horror  of  squan 
dering  a  nickel,  or  many  nickels.  They  were 
magnificently  careless  of  money,  calling  up  eight 
men  to  drink  whisky  at  ten  cents  a  glass,  as 
French  Frank  had  done.  Why,  Nelson  had  just 
spent  sixty  cents  on  beer  for  the  two  of  us. 

Which  was  it  to  be?  I  was  aware  that  I  was 
making  a  grave  decision.  I  was  deciding  between 
money  and  men,  between  niggardliness  and  ro 
mance,  Either  I  must  throw  overboard  all  my 

83 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

old  values  of  money  and  look  upon  it  as  some 
thing  to  be  flung  about  wastefully,  or  I  must 
throw  overboard  my  comradeship  with  those  men 
whose  peculiar  quirks  made  them  care  for  strong 
drink. 

I  retraced  my  steps  up  the  wharf  to  the  Last 
Chance  where  Nelson  still  stood  outside.  "Come 
on  and  have  a  beer,"  I  invited.  Again  we  stood 
at  bar  and  drank  and  talked,  but  this  time  it  was 
I  who  paid — ten  cents !  A  whole  hour  of  my  labor 
at  a  machine  for  a  drink  of  something  I  did  n't 
want  and  which  tasted  rotten.  But  it  was  n't  dif 
ficult.  I  had  achieved  a  concept.  Money  no 
longer  counted.  It  was  comradeship  that  counted. 
"Have  another,"  I  said.  And  we  had  another, 
and  I  paid  for  it.  Nelson,  with  the  wisdom  of 
the  skilled  drinker,  said  to  the  barkeeper,  "Make 
mine  a  small  one,  Johnny."  Johnny  nodded  and 
gave  him  a  glass  that  contained  only  a  third  as 
much  as  the  glasses  we  had  been  drinking.  Yet 
the  charge  was  the  same — five  cents. 

By  this  time  I  was  getting  nicely  jingled,  so 
such  extravagance  did  n't  hurt  me  much.  Be 
sides,  I  was  learning.  There  was  more  in  this 
buying  of  drinks  than  mere  quantity.  I  got  my 
finger  on  it.  There  was  a  stage  when  the  beer 

84 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

did  n't  count  at  all,  but  just  the  spirit  of  comrade 
ship  of  drinking  together.  And,  ha! — another 
thing!  I,  too,  could  call  for  small  beers  and 
minimize  by  two-thirds  the  detestable  freightage 
with  which  comradeship  burdened  one. 

"I  had  to  go  aboard  to  get  some  money,"  I  re 
marked  casually,  as  we  drank,  in  the  hope  Nelson 
would  take  it  as  an  explanation  of  why  I  had  let 
him  treat  six  consecutive  times. 

"Oh,  well,  you  did  n't  have  to  do  that,"  he  an 
swered.  "Johnny  '11  trust  a  fellow  like  you — 
won't  you,  Johnny4?" 

"Sure,"  Johnny  agreed,  with  a  smile. 

"How  much  you  got  down  against  me4?"  Nel 
son  queried. 

Johnny  pulled  out  the  book  he  kept  behind  the 
bar,  found  Nelson's  page,  and  added  up  the  ac 
count  of  several  dollars.  At  once  I  became 
possessed  with  a  desire  to  have  a  page  in  that 
book.  Almost  it  seemed  the  final  badge  of  man 
hood. 

After  a  couple  more  drinks,  for  which  I  in 
sisted  on  paying,  Nelson  decided  to  go.  We 
parted  true  comradely,  and  I  wandered  down  the 
wharf  to  the  Razzle  Dazzle.  Spider  was  just 
building  the  fire  for  supper. 

85 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

"Where  'd  you  get  it?"  he  grinned  up  at  me 
through  the  open  companion. 

"Oh,  I  've  been  with  Nelson,"  I  said  carelessly, 
trying  to  hide  my  pride. 

Then  an  idea  came  to  me.  Here  was  another 
one  of  them.  Now  that  I  had  achieved  my  con 
cept,  I  might  as  well  practice  it  thoroughly. 
"Come  on,"  I  said,  "up  to  Johnny's  and  have  a 
drink." 

Going  up  the  wharf,  we  met  Clam  coming 
down.  Clam  was  Nelson's  partner,  and  he  was 
a  fine,  brave,  handsome,  mustached  man  of  thirty 
— everything,  in  short,  that  his  nickname  did  not 
connote.  "Come  on,"  I  said,  "and  have  a  drink." 
He  came.  As  we  turned  into  the  Last  Chance, 
there  was  Pat,  the  Queen's  brother,  coming  out. 

"What's  your  hurry?"  I  greeted  him.  "We're 
having  a  drink.  Come  on  along."  "I  've  just 
had  one,"  he  demurred.  "What  of  it? — we're 
having  one  now,"  I  retorted.  And  Pat  consented 
to  join  us,  and  I  melted  my  way  into  his  good 
graces  with  a  couple  of  glasses  of  beer.  Oh! 
I  was  learning  things  that  afternoon  about  John 
Barleycorn.  There  was  more  in  him  than  the 
bad  taste  when  you  swallowed  him.  Here,  at 
the  absurd  cost  of  ten  cents,  a  gloomy,  grouchy 

86 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

individual,  who  threatened  to  become  an  enemy, 
was  made  into  a  good  friend,  even  genial,  his 
looks  were  kindly,  and  our  voices  mellowed  to 
gether  as  we  talked  water-front  and  oyster-bed 
gossip. 

"Small  beer  for  me,  Johnny,"  I  said,  when  the 
others  had  ordered  schooners.  Yet  I  said  it  like 
the  accustomed  drinker,  carelessly,  casually,  as  a 
sort  of  spontaneous  thought  that  had  just  occurred 
to  me.  Looking  back,  I  am  confident  that  the 
only  one  there  who  guessed  I  was  a  tyro  at  bar- 
drinking  was  Johnny  Heinhold. 

"Where  'd  he  get  it?"  I  overheard  Spider  con 
fidentially  ask  Johnny. 

"Oh,  he  's  been  sousin'  here  with  Nelson  all 
afternoon,"  was  Johnny's  answer. 

I  never  let  on  that  I  'd  heard,  but  proud?  Ay, 
even  the  barkeeper  was  giving  me  commendation 
as  a  man.  "He  's  been  sousin'  here  with  Nelson 
all  afternoon"  Magic  words !  The  accolade  de 
livered  by  a  barkeeper  with  a  beer  glass ! 

I  remembered  that  French  Frank  had  treated 
Johnny  the  day  I  bought  the  Razzle  Dazzle. 
The  glasses  were  filled,  and  we  were  ready  to 
drink.  "Have  something  yourself,  Johnny,"  I 
said,  with  an  air  of  having  intended  to  say  it  all 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

the  time  but  of  having  been  a  trifle  remiss  be 
cause  of  the  interesting  conversation  I  had  been 
holding  with  Clam  and  Pat. 

Johnny  looked  at  me  with  quick  sharpness,  di 
vining,  I  am  positive,  the  strides  I  was  making 
in  my  education,  and  poured  himself  whisky  from 
his  private  bottle.  This  hit  me  for  a  moment  on 
my  thrifty  side.  He  had  taken  a  ten-cent  drink 
when  the  rest  of  us  were  drinking  five-cent  drinks ! 
But  the  hurt  was  only  for  a  moment.  I  dismissed 
it  as  ignoble,  remembered  my  concept,  and  did  not 
give  myself  away. 

"You  'd  better  put  me  down  in  the  book  for 
this,"  I  said,  when  we  had  finished  the  drink. 
And  I  had  the  satisfaction  of  seeing  a  fresh  page 
devoted  to  my  name  and  a  charge  penciled  for  a 
round  of  drinks  amounting  to  thirty  cents.  And 
I  glimpsed,  as  through  a  golden  haze,  a  future 
wherein  that  page  would  be  much-charged,  and 
crossed  off,  and  charged  again. 

I  treated  a  second  time  around,  and  then,  to  my 
amazement,  Johnny  redeemed  himself  in  that  mat 
ter  of  the  ten-cent  drink.  He  treated  us  a  round 
from  behind  the  bar,  and  I  decided  that  he  had 
arithmetically  evened  things  up  handsomely. 

"Let  5s  go  around  to  the  St.  Louis  House," 
88 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

Spider  suggested,  when  we  got  outside.  Pat, 
who  had  been  shoveling  coal  all  day,  had  gone 
home,  and  Clam  had  gone  upon  the  Reindeer  to 
cook  supper. 

So  around  Spider  and  I  went  to  the  St.  Louis 
House — my  first  visit — a  huge  barroom,  where 
perhaps  fifty  men,  mostly  longshoremen,  were  con 
gregated.  And  there  I  met  Stew  Kennedy  for 
the  second  time,  and  Bill  Kelly.  And  Smith, 
of  the  Annie,  drifted  in — he  of  the  belt-buckled 
revolvers.  And  Nelson  showed  up.  And  I  met 
others,  including  the  Vigy  brothers,  who  ran  the 
place,  and,  chiefest  of  all,  Joe  Goose,  with  the 
wicked  eyes,  the  twisted  nose,  and  the  flowered 
vest,  who  played  the  harmonica  like  a  roystering 
angel  and  went  on  the  most  atrocious  tears  that 
even  the  Oakland  water-front  could  conceive  of 
and  admire. 

As  I  bought  drinks — others  treated  as  well — 
the  thought  flickered  across  my  mind  that  Mammy 
Jennie  was  n't  going  to  be  repaid  much  on  her 
loan  out  of  that  week's  earnings  of  the  Razzle 
Dazzle.  "But  what  of  it*?"  I  thought,  or 
rather,  John  Barleycorn  thought  it  for  me. 
"You  're  a  man  and  you  're  getting  acquainted 
with  men.  Mammy  Jennie  does  n't  need  the 

89 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

money  as  promptly  as  all  that.  She  is  n't  starv 
ing.  You  know  that.  She  's  got  other  money  in 
bank.  Let  her  wait,  and  pay  her  back  grad 
ually." 

And  thus  it  was  I  learned  another  trait  of  John 
Barleycorn.  He  inhibits  morality.  Wrong  con 
duct  that  it  is  impossible  for  one  to  do  sober,  is 
done  quite  easily  when  one  is  not  sober.  In  fact, 
it  is  the  only  thing  one  can  do,  for  John  Barley 
corn's  inhibition  rises  like  a  wall  between  one's 
immediate  desires  and  long-learned  morality. 

I  dismissed  my  thought  of  debt  to  Mammy 
Jennie  and  proceeded  to  get  acquainted  at  the 
trifling  expense  of  some  trifling  money  and  a 
jingle  that  was  growing  unpleasant.  Who  took 
me  on  board  and  put  me  to  bed  that  night  I  do 
not  know,  but  I  imagine  it  must  have  been  Spider. 


QO 


CHAPTER  X 

AND  so  I  won  my  manhood's  spurs.  My 
status  on  the  water-front  and  with  the 
oyster  pirates  became  immediately  excellent.  I 
was  looked  upon  as  a  good  fellow,  as  well  as  no 
coward.  And  somehow,  from  the  day  I  achieved 
that  concept  sitting  on  the  stringer-piece  of  the 
Oakland  City  Wharf,  I  have  never  cared  much 
for  money.  No  one  has  ever  considered  me  a 
miser  since,  while  my  carelessness  of  money  is  a 
source  of  anxiety  and  worry  to  some  that  know 
me. 

So  completely  did  I  break  with  my  parsimo 
nious  past  that  I  sent  word  home  to  my  mother 
to  call  in  the  boys  of  the  neighborhood  and  give  to 
them  all  my  collections.  I  never  even  cared 
to  learn  what  boys  got  what  collections.  I  was 
a  man,  now,  and  I  made  a  clean  sweep  of  every 
thing  that  bound  me  to  my  boyhood. 

My  reputation  grew.  When  the  story  went 
around  the  water-front  of  how  French  Frank  had 

91 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

tried  to  run  me  down  with  his  schooner,  and  of 
how  I  had  stood  on  the  deck  of  the  Razzle  Dazzle, 
a  cocked  double-barreled  shotgun  in  my  hands, 
steering  with  my  feet  and  holding  her  to  her 
course,  and  compelled  him  to  put  up  his  wheel 
and  keep  away,  the  water-front  decided  that  there 
was  something  to  me  despite  my  youth.  And  I 
continued  to  show  what  was  in  me.  There  were 
the  times  I  brought  the  Razzle  Dazzle  in  with  a 
bigger  load  of  oysters  than  any  other  two-man 
craft;  there  was  the  time  when  we  raided  far 
down  in  Lower  Bay  and  mine  was  the  only  craft 
back  at  daylight  to  the  anchorage  off  Asparagus 
Island;  there  was  the  Thursday  night  we  raced 
for  market  and  I  brought  the  Razzle  Dazzle  in 
without  a  rudder,  first  of  the  fleet,  and  skimmed 
the  cream  of  the  Friday  morning  trade ;  and  there 
was  the  time  I  brought  her  in  from  Upper  Bay 
under  a  jib,  when  Scotty  burned  my  mainsail. 
(Yes;  it  was  Scotty  of  the  Idler  adventure. 
Irish  had  followed  Spider  on  board  the  Razzle 
Dazzle,  and  Scotty,  turning  up,  had  taken  Irish's 
place). 

But  the  things  I  did  on  the  water  only  partly 
counted.  What  completed  everything  and  won 
for  me  the  title  of  "Prince  of  the  Oyster  Beds," 

92 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

was  that  I  was  a  good  fellow  ashore  with  my 
money,  buying  drinks  like  a  man.  I  little 
dreamed  that  the  time  would  come  when  the  Oak 
land  water-front,  which  had  shocked  me  at  first, 
would  be  shocked  and  annoyed  by  the  deviltry  of 
the  things  I  did. 

But  always  the  life  was  tied  up  with  drinking. 
The  saloons  are  poor  men's  clubs.  Saloons  are 
congregating  places.  We  engaged  to  meet  one 
another  in  saloons.  We  celebrated  our  good  for 
tune  or  wept  our  grief  in  saloons.  We  got 
acquainted  in  saloons. 

Can  I  ever  forget  the  afternoon  I  met  "Old 
Scratch,"  Nelson's  father?  It  was  in  the  Last 
Chance.  Johnny  Heinhold  introduced  us.  That 
Old  Scratch  was  Nelson's  father  was  noteworthy 
enough.  But  there  was  more  to  it  than  that. 
He  was  owner  and  master  of  the  scow-schooner 
Annie  Mine,  and  some  day  I  might  ship  as  a  sailor 
with  him.  Still  more,  he  was  romance.  He  was 
a  blue-eyed,  yellow-haired,  raw-boned  Viking, 
big-bodied  and  strong-muscled  despite  his  age. 
And  he  had  sailed  the  seas  in  ships  of  all  nations 
in  the  old  savage  sailing  days. 

I  had  heard  many  weird  tales  about  him,  and 
worshiped  him  from  a  distance.  It  took  the 

93 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

saloon  to  bring  us  together.  Even  so,  our  ac 
quaintance  might  have  been  no  more  than  a  hand 
grip  and  a  word — he  was  a  laconic  old  fellow — 
had  it  not  been  for  the  drinking. 

"Have  a  drink,"  I  said,  with  promptitude,  after 
the  pause  which  I  had  learned  good  form  in  drink 
ing  dictates.  Of  course,  while  we  drank  our  beer, 
which  I  had  paid  for,  it  was  incumbent  on  him  to 
listen  to  me  and  to  talk  to  me.  And  Johnny, 
like  a  true  host,  made  the  tactful  remarks  that  en 
abled  us  to  find  mutual  topics  of  conversation. 
And  of  course,  having  drunk  my  beer,  Captain 
Nelson  must  now  buy  beer  in  turn.  This  led 
to  more  talking,  and  Johnny  drifted  out  of  the 
conversation  to  wait  on  other  customers. 

The  more  beer  Captain  Nelson  and  I  drank  the 
better  we  got  acquainted.  In  me  he  found  an  ap 
preciative  listener,  who,  by  virtue  of  book-reading, 
knew  much  about  the  sea-life  he  had  lived.  So 
he  drifted  back  to  his  wild  young  days,  and  spun 
many  a  rare  yarn  for  me,  while  we  downed  beer, 
treat  by  treat,  all  through  a  blessed  summer  after 
noon.  And  it  was  only  John  Barleycorn  that 
made  possible  that  long  afternoon  with  the  old 
sea  dog. 

It  was  Johnny  Heinhold  who  secretly  warned 

94 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

me  across  the  bar  that  I  was  getting  pickled  and 
advised  me  to  take  small  beers.  But  as  long  as 
Captain  Nelson  drank  large  beers,  my  pride  for 
bade  anything  else  than  large  beers.  And  not 
until  the  skipper  ordered  his  first  small  beer  did 
I  order  one  for  myself.  Oh,  when  we  came  to  a 
lingering  fond  farewell,  I  was  drunk.  But  I  had 
the  satisfaction  of  seeing  Old  Scratch  as  drunk  as 
I.  My  youthful  modesty  scarcely  let  me  dare 
believe  that  the  hardened  old  bucaneer  was  even 
drunker. 

And  afterwards,  from  Spider,  and  Pat,  and 
Clam,  and  Johnny  Heinhold,  and  others,  came 
the  tips  that  Old  Scratch  liked  me  and  had  nothing 
but  good  words  for  the  fine  lad  I  was.  Which 
was  the  more  remarkable,  because  he  was  known 
as  a  savage,  cantankerous  old  cuss  who  never 
liked  anybody.  (His  very  nickname,  "Scratch," 
arose  from  a  Berserker  trick  of  his,  in  fighting,  of 
tearing  off  his  opponent's  face).  And  that  I  had 
won  to  his  friendship,  all  thanks  were  due  to  John 
Barleycorn.  I  have  given  the  incident  merely  as 
an  example  of  the  multitudinous  lures  and  draws 
and  services  by  which  John  Barleycorn  wins  his 
followers. 


CHAPTER  XI 

AND  still  there  arose  in  me  no  desire  for  alco 
hol,  no  chemical  demand.  In  years  and 
years  of  heavy  drinking,  drinking  did  not  beget 
the  desire.  Drinking  was  the  way  of  the  life  I 
led,  the  way  of  the  men  with  whom  I  lived. 
While  away  on  my  cruises  on  the  bay,  I  took  no 
drink  along ;  and  while  out  on  the  bay  the  thought 
of  the  desirableness  of  a  drink  never  crossed  my 
mind.  It  was  not  until  I  tied  the  Razzle  Dazzle 
up  to  the  wharf  and  got  ashore  in  the  congregat 
ing  places  of  men,  where  drink  flowed,  that  the 
buying  of  drinks  for  other  men,  and  the  accepting 
of  drinks  from  other  men,  devolved  upon  me  as 
a  social  duty  and  a  manhood  rite. 

Then,  too,  there  were  the  times,  lying  at  the 
city  wharf  or  across  the  estuary  on  the  sandpit, 
when  the  Queen,  and  her  sister,  and  her  brother 
Pat,  and  Mrs.  Hadley  came  aboard.  It  was  my 
boat.  I  was  host,  and  I  could  only  dispense  hos 
pitality  in  the  terms  of  their  understanding  of  it. 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

So  I  would  rush  Spider,  or  Irish,  or  Scotty,  or 
whoever  was  my  crew,  with  the  can  for  beer  and 
the  demijohn  for  red  wine.  And  again,  lying  at 
the  wharf  disposing  of  my  oysters,  there  were 
dusky  twilights  when  big  policemen  and  plain 
clothes  men  stole  on  board.  And  because  we 
lived  in  the  shadow  of  the  police,  we  opened 
oysters  and  fed  them  to  them  with  squirts  of  pep 
per  sauce,  and  rushed  the  growler  or  got  stronger 
stuff  in  bottles. 

Drink  as  I  would,  I  could  n't  come  to  like  John 
Barleycorn.  I  valued  him  extremely  well  for  his 
associations,  but  not  for  the  taste  of  him.  All  the 
time  I  was  striving  to  be  a  man  amongst  men,  and 
all  the  time  I  nursed  secret  and  shameful  desires 
for  candy.  But  I  would  have  died  before  I  'd  let 
anybody  guess  it.  I  used  to  indulge  in  lonely  de 
bauches,  on  nights  when  I  knew  my  crew  was  go 
ing  to  sleep  ashore.  I  would  go  up  to  the  Free 
Library,  exchange  my  books,  buy  a  quarter's  worth 
of  all  sorts  of  candy  that  chewed  and  lasted,  sneak 
aboard  the  Razzle  Dazzle,  lock  myself  in  the 
cabin,  go  to  bed,  and  lie  there  long  hours  of  bliss, 
reading  and  chewing  candy.  And  those  were  the 
only  times  I  felt  that  I  got  my  real  money's  worth. 
Dollars  and  dollars,  across  the  bar,  could  n't  buy 

97 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

the  satisfaction  that  twenty-five  cents  did  in  a 
candy  store.  As  my  drinking  grew  heavier,  I  be 
gan  to  note  more  and  more  that  it  was  in  the 
drinking  bouts  the  purple  passages  occurred. 
Drunks  were  always  memorable.  At  such  times 
things  happened.  Men  like  Joe  Goose  dated  ex 
istence  from  drunk  to  drunk.  The  longshore 
men  all  looked  forward  to  their  Saturday  night 
drunk.  We  of  the  oyster  boats  waited  until  we 
had  disposed  of  our  cargoes  before  we  got  really 
started,  though  a  scattering  of  drinks  and  a  meet 
ing  of  a  chance  friend  sometimes  precipitated  an 
accidental  drunk. 

In  ways,  the  accidental  drunks  were  the  best. 
Stranger  and  more  exciting  things  happened  at 
such  times.  As,  for  instance,  the  Sunday  when 
Nelson  and  French  Frank  and  Captain  Spink 
stole  the  stolen  salmon  boat  from  Whisky  Bob 
and  Nicky  the  Greek.  Changes  had  taken  place 
in  the  personnel  of  the  oyster  boats.  Nelson  had 
got  into  a  fight  with  Bill  Kelly  on  the  Annie  and 
was  carrying  a  bullet-hole  through  his  left  hand. 
Also,  having  quarreled  with  Clam  and  broken 
partnership,  Nelson  had  sailed  the  Reindeer,  his 
arm  in  a  sling,  with  a  crew  of  two  deep-water 
sailors,  and  he  had  sailed  so  madly  as  to  frighten 

98 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

them  ashore.  Such  was  the  tale  of  his  reckless 
ness  they  spread,  that  no  one  on  the  water-front 
would  go  out  with  Nelson.  So  the  Reindeer, 
crewless,  lay  across  the  estuary  at  the  sandpit. 
Beside  her  lay  the  Razzle  Dazzle  with  a  burned 
mainsail  and  with  Scotty  and  me  on  board. 
Whisky  Bob  had  fallen  out  with  French  Frank 
and  gone  on  a  raid  "up  river"  with  Nicky  the 
Greek. 

The  result  of  this  raid  was  a  brand  new  Co 
lumbia  River  salmon  boat,  stolen  from  an  Italian 
fisherman.  We  oyster  pirates  were  all  visited  by 
the  searching  Italian,  and  we  were  convinced, 
from  what  we  knew  of  their  movements,  that 
Whisky  Bob  and  Nicky  the  Greek  were  the  guilty 
parties.  But  where  was  the  salmon  boat*?  Hun 
dreds  of  Greek  and  Italian  fishermen,  up  river 
and  down  bay,  had  searched  every  slough  and 
tule  patch  for  it.  When  the  owner  despairingly 
offered  a  reward  of  fifty  dollars,  our  interest  in 
creased  and  the  mystery  deepened. 

One  Sunday  morning,  old  Captain  Spink  paid 
me  a  visit.  The  conversation  was  confidential. 
He  had  just  been  fishing  in  his  skiff  in  the  old 
Alameda  ferry  slip.  As  the  tide  went  down,  he 
had  noticed  a  rope  tied  to  a  pile  under  water  and 

99 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

leading  downward.  In  vain  he  had  tried  to  heave 
up  what  was  fast  on  the  other  end.  Farther 
along,  to  another  pile,  was  a  similar  rope,  leading 
downward  and  unheavable.  Without  doubt, 
it  was  the  missing  salmon  boat.  If  we  restored  it 
to  its  rightful  owner  there  was  fifty  dollars  in  it 
for  us.  But  I  had  queer  ethical  notions  about 
honor  amongst  thieves,  and  declined  to  have  any 
thing  to  do  with  the  affair. 

But  French  Frank  had  quarreled  with  Whisky 
Bob,  and  Nelson  was  also  an  enemy.  (Poor 
Whisky  Bob ! — without  viciousness,  good-natured, 
generous,  born  weak,  raised  poorly,  with  an  irre 
sistible  chemical  demand  for  alcohol,  still  prose 
cuting  his  vocation  of  bay  pirate,  his  body  was 
picked  up,  not  long  afterward,  beside  a  dock 
where  it  had  sunk  full  of  gunshot  wounds). 
Within  an  hour  after  I  had  rejected  Captain 
Spink's  proposal,  I  saw  him  sail  down  the  estuary 
on  board  the  Reindeer  with  Nelson.  Also, 
French  Frank  went  by  on  his  schooner. 

It  was  not  long  ere  they  sailed  back  up  the 
estuary,  curiously  side  by  side.  As  they  headed 
in  for  the  sandpit,  the  submerged  salmon  boat 
could  be  seen,  gunwales  awash  and  held  up  from 
sinking  by  ropes  fast  to  the  schooner  and  the 

100 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN, 

sloop.  The  tide  was  half  out,  arid  they  sailed 
squarely  in  on  the  sand,  grounding  in  a  row  with 
the  salmon  boat  in  the  middle. 

Immediately  Hans,  one  of  French  Frank's 
sailors,  was  into  a  skiff  and  pulling  rapidly  for 
the  north  shore.  The  big  demijohn  in  the  stem- 
sheets  told  his  errand.  They  could  n't  wait  a  mo 
ment  to  celebrate  the  fifty  dollars  they  had  so 
easily  earned.  It  is  the  way  of  the  devotees  of 
John  Barleycorn.  When  good  fortune  comes, 
they  drink.  When  they  have  no  fortune  they 
drink  to  the  hope  of  good  fortune.  If  fortune  be 
ill,  they  drink  to  forget  it.  If  they  meet  a  friend, 
they  drink.  If  they  quarrel  with  a  friend  and 
lose  him,  they  drink.  If  their  love-making  be 
crowned  with  success,  they  are  so  happy  they 
needs  must  drink.  If  they  be  jilted,  they  drink 
for  the  contrary  reason.  And  if  they  have  n't 
anything  to  do  at  all,  why  they  take  a  drink,  se 
cure  in  the  knowledge  that  when  they  have  taken 
a  sufficient  number  of  drinks  the  maggots  will 
start  crawling  in  their  brains  and  they  will  have 
their  hands  full  with  things  to  do.  When  they 
are  sober  they  want  to  drink;  and  when  they  have 
drunk  they  want  to  drink  more. 

Of  course,  as  fellow  comrades,  Scotty  and  I 

101 


\  JQHN  BARLEYCORN 

were  called  in  for  the  drinking.  We  helped  to 
make  a  hole  in  that  fifty  dollars  not  yet  received. 
The  afternoon,  from  just  an  ordinary,  common, 
summer,  Sunday  afternoon,  became  a  gorgeous, 
purple  afternoon.  We  all  talked  and  sang  and 
ranted  and  bragged,  and  ever  French  Frank  and 
Nelson  sent  more  drinks  around.  We  lay  in  full 
sight  of  the  Oakland  water-front,  and  the  noise 
of  our  revels  attracted  friends.  Skiff  after  skiff 
crossed  the  estuary  and  hauled  up  on  the  sand 
pit,  while  Hans'  work  was  cut  out  for  him — 
ever  to  row  back  and  forth  for  more  supplies  of 
booze. 

Then  Whisky  Bob  and  Nicky  the  Greek  ar 
rived,  sober,  indignant,  outraged  in  that  their  fel 
low  pirates  had  raised  their  plant.  French  Frank, 
aided  by  John  Barleycorn,  orated  hypocritically 
about  virtue  and  honesty,  and,  despite  his  fifty 
years,  got  Whisky  Bob  out  on  the  sand  and  pro- 
ceded  to  lick  him.  When  Nicky  the  Greek 
jumped  in  with  a  short-handled  shovel  to  Whisky 
Bob's  assistance,  short  work  was  made  of  him  by 
Hans.  And  of  course,  when  the  bleeding  rem 
nants  of  Bob  and  Nicky  were  sent  packing  in  their 
skiff,  the  event  must  needs  be  celebrated  in  further 
carousal. 

102 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

By  this  time,  our  visitors  being  numerous,  we 
were  a  large  crowd  compounded  of  many  national 
ities  and  diverse  temperaments,  all  aroused  by 
John  Barleycorn,  all  restraints  cast  off.  Old 
quarrels  revived,  ancient  hates  flared  up.  Fight 
was  in  the  air.  And  whenever  a  longshoreman 
remembered  something  against  a  scow-schooner 
sailor,  or  vice  versa,  or  an  oyster  pirate  remem 
bered  or  was  remembered,  a  fist  shot  out  and  an 
other  fight  was  on.  And  every  fight  was  made  up 
in  more  rounds  of  drinks,  wherein  the  combatants, 
aided  and  abetted  by  the  rest  of  us,  embraced  each 
other  and  pledged  undying  friendship. 

And  of  all  times,  Soup  Kennedy  selected  this 
time  to  come  and  retrieve  an  old  shirt  of  his,  left 
aboard  the  Reindeer  from  the  trip  he  sailed  with 
Clam.  He  had  espoused  Clam's  side  of  the  quar 
rel  with  Nelson.  Also,  he  had  been  drinking  in 
the  St.  Louis  House,  so  that  it  was  John  Barley 
corn  who  led  him  to  the  sandpit  in  quest  of  his 
old  shirt.  A  few  words  started  the  fray.  He 
locked  with  Nelson  in  the  cockpit  of  the  Reindeer, 
and  in  the  mix-up  barely  escaped  being  brained  by 
an  iron  bar  wielded  by  irate  French  Frank — irate 
because  a  two-handed  man  had  attacked  a  one- 
handed  man.  (If  the  Reindeer  still  floats,  the 

103 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

dent  of  the  iron  bar  remains  in  the  hard- wood  rail 
of  her  cockpit.) 

But  Nelson  pulled  his  bandaged  hand,  bullet- 
perforated,  out  of  its  sling,  and,  held  by  us,  wept 
and  roared  his  Berserker  belief  that  he  could  lick 
Soup  Kennedy  one-handed.  And  we  let  them 
loose  on  the  sand.  Once,  when  it  looked  as  if 
Nelson  were  getting  the  worst  of  it,  French  Frank 
and  John  Barleycorn  sprang  unfairly  into  the 
fight.  Scotty  protested  and  reached  for  French 
Frank,  who  whirled  upon  him  and  fell  on  top  of 
him  in  a  pummeling  clinch  after  a  sprawl  of 
twenty  feet  across  the  sand.  In  the  course  of  sep 
arating  these  two,  half-a-dozen  fights  started 
amongst  the  rest  of  us.  These  fights  were  fin 
ished,  one  way  or  the  other,  or  we  separated  them 
with  drinks,  while  all  the  time  Nelson  and  Soup 
Kennedy  fought  on.  Occasionally  we  returned 
to  them  and  gave  advice,  such  as,  when  they  lay 
exhausted  in  the  sand,  unable  to  strike  a  blow, 
"Throw  sand  in  his  eyes."  And  they  threw  sand 
in  each  other's  eyes,  recuperated  and  fought  on  to 
successive  exhaustions. 

And  now,  of  all  this  that  is  squalid,  and  ridic 
ulous,  and  bestial,  try  to  think  what  it  meant  to 
me,  a  youth  not  yet  sixteen,  burning  with  the 

104 


A  few   words  started  the  fray 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

spirit  of  adventure,  fancy-filled  with  tales  of 
bucaneers  and  sea-rovers,  sacks  of  cities  and  con 
flicts  of  armed  men,  and  imagination-maddened 
by  the  stuff  I  had  drunk.  It  was  life  raw  and 
naked,  wild  and  free — the  only  life  of  that  sort 
which  my  birth  in  time  and  space  permitted  me  to 
attain.  And  more  than  that.  It  carried  a 
promise.  It  was  the  beginning.  From  the  sand 
pit  the  way  led  out  through  the  Golden  Gate  to 
the  vastness  of  adventure  of  all  the  world,  where 
battles  would  be  fought,  not  for  old  shirts  and 
over  stolen  salmon  boats,  but  for  high  purposes 
and  romantic  ends. 

And  because  I  told  Scotty  what  I  thought  of 
his  letting  an  old  man  like  French  Frank  get  away 
with  him,  we,  too,  brawled  and  added  to  the  fes 
tivity  of  the  sandpit.  And  Scotty  threw  up  his 
job  as  crew,  and  departed  in  the  night  with  a  pair 
of  blankets  belonging  to  me.  During  the  night, 
while  the  oyster  pirates  lay  stupefied  'in  their 
bunks,  the  schooner  and  the  Reindeer  floated  on 
the  high  water  and  swung  about  to  their  anchors. 
The  salmon  boat,  still  filled  with  rocks  and  water, 
rested  on  the  bottom. 

In  the  morning,  early,  I  heard  wild  cries  from 
the  Reindeer,  and  tumbled  out  in  the  chill  gray 

107 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

to  see  a  spectacle  that  made  the  water-front  laugh 
for  days.  The  beautiful  salmon  boat  lay  on  the 
hard  sand,  squashed  flat  as  a  pancake,  while  on  it 
were  perched  French  Frank's  schooner  and  the 
Reindeer.  Unfortunately  two  of  the  Reindeer's 
planks  had  been  crushed  in  by  the  stout  oak  stem 
of  the  salmon  boat.  The  rising  tide  had  flowed 
through  the  hole  and  just  awakened  Nelson  by 
getting  into  his  bunk  with  him.  I  lent  a  hand, 
and  we  pumped  the  Reindeer  out  and  repaired 
the  damage. 

Then  Nelson  cooked  breakfast,  and  while  we 
ate  we  considered  the  situation.  He  was  broke. 
So  was  I.  The  fifty  dollars'  reward  would  never 
be  paid  for  that  pitiful  mess  of  splinters  on  the 
sand  beneath  us.  He  had  a  wounded  hand  and 
no  crew.  I  had  a  burned  mainsail  and  no  crew. 
"What  d'ye  say  you  and  me?"  Nelson  queried. 
"I  '11  go  you,"  was  my  answer.  And  thus  I  be 
came  partners  with  "Young  Scratch"  Nelson,  the 
wildest,  maddest  of  them  all.  We  borrowed  the 
money  for  an  outfit  of  grub  from  Johnny  Hein- 
hold,  filled  our  water-barrels,  and  sailed  away  that 
day  for  the  oyster-beds. 


108 


CHAPTER  XII 

NOR  have  I  ever  regretted  those  months  of 
mad  deviltry  I  put  in  with  Nelson.  He 
could  sail,  even  if  he  did  frighten  every  man  that 
sailed  with  him.  To  steer  to  miss  destruction  by 
an  inch  or  an  instant  was  his  joy.  To  do  what 
everybody  else  did  not  dare  attempt  to  do  was 
his  pride.  Never  to  reef  down  was  his  mania, 
and  in  all  the  time  I  spent  with  him,  blow  high 
or  low,  the  Reindeer  was  never  reefed.  Nor  was 
she  ever  dry.  We  strained  her  open  and  sailed 
her  open  and  sailed  her  open  continually.  And 
we  abandoned  the  Oakland  water-front  and  went 
wider  afield  for  our  adventures. 

And  all  this  glorious  passage  in  my  life  was 
made  possible  for  me  by  John  Barleycorn.  And 
this  is  my  complaint  against  John  Barleycorn. 
Here  I  was,  thirsting  for  the  wild  life  of  adven 
ture,  and  the  only  way  for  me  to  win  to  it  was 
through  John  Barleycorn's  mediation.  It  was  the 
way  of  the  men  who  lived  the  life.  Did  I  wish 

109 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

to  live  the  life,  I  must  live  it  the  way  they  did. 
It  was  by  virtue  of  drinking  that  I  gained  that 
partnership  and  comradeship  with  Nelson.  Had 
I  drunk  only  the  beer  he  paid  for,  or  had  I  de 
clined  to  drink  at  all,  I  should  never  have  been 
selected  by  him  as  a  partner.  He  wanted  a  part 
ner  who  would  meet  him  on  the  social  side,  as  well 
as  the  work  side,  of  life. 

I  abandoned  myself  to  the  life,  and  developed 
the  misconception  that  the  secret  of  John  Bar 
leycorn  lay  in  going  on  mad  drunks,  rising  through 
the  successive  stages  that  only  an  iron  constitu 
tion  could  endure  to  final  stupefaction  and  swinish 
unconsciousness.  I  did  not  like  the  taste,  so  I 
drank  for  the  sole  purpose  of  getting  drunk,  of 
getting  hopelessly,  helplessly  drunk.  And  I,  who 
had  saved  and  scraped,  traded  like  a  Shylock  and 
made  junkmen  weep;  I,  who  had  stood  aghast 
when  French  Frank,  at  a  single  stroke,  spent 
eighty  cents  for  whisky  for  eight  men;  I  turned 
myself  loose  with  a  more  lavish  disregard  for 
money  than  any  of  them. 

I  remember  going  ashore  one  night  with  Nel 
son.  In  my  pocket  was  one  hundred  and  eighty 
dollars.  It  was  my  intention,  first,  to  buy  me 
some  clothes,  after  that  some  drinks.  I  needed  the 

no 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

clothes.  All  I  possessed  were  on  me,  and  they 
were  as  follows:  a  pair  of  sea-boots  that  provi 
dentially  leaked  the  water  out  as  fast  as  it  ran  in, 
a  pair  of  fifty-cent  overalls,  a  forty-cent  cotton 
shirt,  and  a  sou'wester.  I  had  no  hat,  so  I  had 
to  wear  the  sou'wester,  and  it  will  be  noted  that 
I  have  listed  neither  underclothes  nor  socks.  I 
did  n't  own  any. 

To  reach  the  stores  where  clothes  could  be 
bought,  we  had  to  pass  a  dozen  saloons.  So  I 
bought  me  the  drinks  first.  I  never  got  to  the 
clothing  stores.  In  the  morning,  broke,  poisoned, 
but  contented,  I  came  back  on  board,  and  we  set 
sail.  I  possessed  only  the  clothes  I  had  gone 
ashore  in,  and  not  a  cent  remained  of  the  one 
hundred  and  eighty  dollars.  It  might  well  be 
deemed  impossible,  by  those  who  have  never  tried 
it,  that  in  twelve  hours  a  lad  can  spend  all  of 
one  hundred  and  eighty  dollars  for  drinks.  I 
know  otherwise. 

And  I  had  no  regrets.  I  was  proud.  I  had 
shown  them  I  could  spend  with  the  rest  of  them. 
Amongst  strong  men  I  had  proved  myself  strong. 
I  had  clinched  again,  as  I  had  often  clinched,  my 
right  to  the  title  of  "Prince."  Also,  my  attitude 
may  be  considered,  in  part,  as  a  reaction  from  my 

ill 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

childhood's  meagerness  and  my  childhood's  ex 
cessive  toil. 

Possibly  my  inchoate  thought  was:  Better  to 
reign  among  booze-fighters,  a  prince,  than  to  toil 
twelve  hours  a  day  at  a  machine  for  ten  cents  an 
hour.  There  are  no  purple  passages  in  machine 
toil.  But  if  the  spending  of  one  hundred  and 
eighty  dollars  in  twelve  hours  is  n't  a  purple  pass 
age,  then  I  'd  like  to  know  what  is. 

Oh,  I  skip  much  of  the  details  of  my  trafficking 
with  John  Barleycorn  during  this  period,  and 
shall  only  mention  events  that  will  throw  light 
on  John  Barleycorn's  ways.  There  were  three 
things  that  enabled  me  to  pursue  this  heavy 
drinking:  first,  a  magnificent  constitution  far  bet 
ter  than  the  average;  second,  the  healthy,  open- 
air  life  on  the  water;  and  third,  the  fact  that  I 
drank  irregularly.  While  out  on  the  water,  we 
never  carried  any  drink  along. 

The  world  was  opening  up  to  me.  Already  I 
knew  several  hundred  miles  of  the  waterways  of 
it,  and  of  the  towns  and  cities  and  fishing  ham 
lets  on  the  shores.  Came  the  whisper  to  range 
farther.  I  had  not  found  it  yet.  There  was 
more  behind.  But  even  this  much  of  the  world 
was  too  wide  for  Nelson.  He  wearied  for  his 

112 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

beloved  Oakland  water-front,  and  when  he  elected 
to  return  to  it  we  separated  in  all  friendliness. 

I  now  made  the  old  town  of  Benicia,  on  the 
Carquinez  Straits,  my  headquarters.  In  a  clus 
ter  of  fishermen's  arks,  moored  in  the  tules  on  the 
water-front,  dwelt  a  congenial  crowd  of  drinkers 
and  vagabonds,  and  I  joined  them.  I  had  longer 
spells  ashore,  between  fooling  with  salmon  fish 
ing  and  making  raids  up  and  down  bay  and 
rivers  as  a  deputy  fish  patrolman,  and  I  drank 
more  and  learned  more  about  drinking.  I  held 
my  own  with  any  one,  drink  for  drink;  and  often 
drank  more  than  my  share  to  show  the  strength 
of  my  manhood.  When,  on  a  morning,  my  un 
conscious  carcass  was  disentangled  from  the  nets 
on  the  drying-frames,  whither  I  had  stupidly, 
blindly  crawled  the  night  before;  and  when  the 
water-front  talked  it  over  with  many  a  giggle  and 
laugh  and  another  drink,  I  was  proud  indeed.  It 
was  an  exploit. 

And  when  I  never  drew  a  sober  breath,  on  one 
stretch,  for  three  solid  weeks,  I  was  certain  I  had 
reached  the  top.  Surely,  in  that  direction,  one 
could  go  no  farther.  It  was  time  for  me  to  move 
on.  For  always,  drunk  or  sober,  at  the  back  of 
my  consciousness  something  whispered  that  this 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

carousing  and  bay-adventuring  was  not  all  of 
life.  This  whisper  was  my  good  fortune.  I  hap 
pened  to  be  so  made  that  I  could  hear  it  calling, 
always  calling,  out  and  away  over  the  world.  It 
was  not  canniness  on  my  part.  It  was  curiosity, 
desire  to  know,  an  unrest  and  a  seeking  for 
things  wonderful  that  I  seemed  somehow  to  have 
glimpsed  or  guessed.  What  was  this  life  for,  I 
demanded,  if  this  were  all^  No;  there  was  some 
thing  more,  away  and  beyond.  (And,  in  relation 
to  my  much  later  development  as  a  drinker,  this 
whisper,  this  promise  of  the  things  at  the  back  of 
life,  must  be  noted,  for  it  was  destined  to  play  a 
dire  part  in  my  later  wrestlings  with  John' Barley 
corn.) 

But  what  gave  immediacy  to  my  decision  to 
move  on,  was  a  trick  John  Barleycorn  played 
me — a  monstrous,  incredible  trick  that  showed 
abysses  of  intoxication  hitherto  undreamed.  At 
one  o'clock  in  the  morning,  after  a  prodigious 
drunk,  I  was  tottering  aboard  a  sloop  at  the  end 
of  the  wharf,  intending  to  go  to  sleep.  The  tides 
sweep  through  Carquinez  Straits  as  in  a  mill-race, 
and  the  full  ebb  was  on  when  I  stumbled  over 
board.-  There  was  nobody  on  the  wharf,  nobody 
on  the  sloop.  I  was  borne  away  by  the  current. 

114 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

I  was  not  startled.  I  thought  the  misadventure 
delightful.  I  was  a  good  swimmer,  and  in  my 
inflamed  condition  the  contact  of  the  water  with 
my  skin  soothed  me  like  cool  linen. 

And  then  John  Barleycorn  played  me  his  mani 
acal  trick.  Some  maundering  fancy  of  going  out 
with  the  tide  suddenly  obsessed  me.  I  had  never 
been  morbid.  Thoughts  of  suicide  had  never  en 
tered  my  head.  And  now  that  they  entered,  I 
thought  it  fine,  a  splendid  culmination,  a  perfect 
rounding  off  of  my  short  but  exciting  career.  I, 
who  had  never  known  girl's  love,  nor  woman's 
love,  nor  the  love  of  children;  who  had  never 
played  in  the  wide  joy-fields  of  art,  nor  climbed 
the  star-cool  heights  of  philosophy,  nor  seen  with 
my  eyes  more  than  a  pin-point's  surface  of  the 
gorgeous  world;  I  decided  that  this  was  all,  that 
I  had  seen  all,  lived  all,  been  all,  that  was  worth 
while,  and  that  now  was  the  time  to  cease.  This 
was  the  trick  of  John  Barleycorn,  laying  me  by 
the  heels  of  my  imagination  and  in  a  drug-dream 
dragging  me  to  death. 

Oh,  he  was  convincing.  I  had  really  experi 
enced  all  of  life,  and  it  did  n't  amount  to 
much.  The  swinish  drunkenness  in  which  I  had 
lived  for  months  (this  was  accompanied  by  the 

.115 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

sense  of  degradation  and  the  old  feeling  of  con 
viction  of  sin)  was  the  last  and  best,  and  I  could 
see  for  myself  what  it  was  worth.  There  were 
all  the  broken-down  old  bums  and  loafers  I  had 
bought  drinks  for.  That  was  what  remained  of 
life.  Did  I  want  to  become  like  them?  A 
thousand  times  no ;  and  I  wept  tears  of  sweet  sad 
ness  over  my  glorious  youth  going  out  with  the 
tide.  (And  who  has  not  seen  the  weeping-drunk, 
the  melancholic  drunk ?  They  are  to  be  found 
in  all  the  barrooms,  if  they  can  find  no  other 
listener  telling  their  sorrows  to  the  barkeeper,  who 
is  paid  to  listen.) 

The  water  was  delicious.  It  was  a  man's  way 
to  die.  John  Barleycorn  changed  the  tune  he 
played  in  my  drink-maddened  brain.  Away  with 
tears  and  regret.  It  was  a  hero's  death,  and  by 
the  hero's  own  hand  and  will.  So  I  struck  up  my 
death-chant  and  was  singing  it  lustily,  when  the 
gurgle  and  splash  of  the  current-riffles  in  my  ears 
reminded  me  of  my  more  immediate  situation. 

Below  the  town  of  Benicia,  where  the  Solano 
wharf  projects,  the  straits  widen  out  into  what 
bay-farers  call  the  "Bight  of  Turner's  Shipyard." 
I  was  in  the  shore-tide  that  swept  under  the 
Solano  wharf  and  on  into  the  bight.  I  knew  of 

116 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

old  the  power  of  the  suck  which  developed  when 
the  tide  swung  around  the  end  of  Dead  Man's 
Island  and  drove  straight  for  the  wharf.  I 
did  n't  want  to  go  through  those  piles.  It 
would  n't  be  nice,  and  I  might  lose  an  hour  in  the 
bight  on  my  way  out  with  the  tide. 

I  undressed  in  the  water  and  struck  out  with  a 
strong,  single-overhand  stroke,  crossing  the  cur 
rent  at  right  angles.  Nor  did  I  cease  until,  by 
the  wharf-lights,  I  knew  I  was  safe  to  sweep  by 
the  end.  Then  I  turned  over  and  rested.  The 
stroke  had  been  a  telling  one,  and  I  was  a  little 
time  in  recovering  my  breath. 

I  was  elated,  for  I  had  succeeded  in  avoiding 
the  suck.  I  started  to  raise  my  death-chant  again 
— a  purely  extemporized  farrago  of  a  drug-crazed 
youth.  "Don't  sing  .  .  .  yet,"  whispered  John 
Barleycorn.  "The  Solano  runs  all  night.  There 
are  railroad  men  on  the  wharf.  They  will  hear 
you,  and  come  out  in  a  boat  and  rescue  you,  and 
you  don't  want  to  be  rescued."  I  certainly 
did  n't.  What1?  Be  robbed  of  my  hero's  death? 
Never.  And  I  lay  on  my  back  in  the  starlight, 
watching  the  familiar  wharf-lights  go  by,  red  and 
green  and  white,  and  bidding  sad,  sentimental 
farewell  to  them,  each  and  all. 

117 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

When  I  was  well  clear,  in  mid-channel,  I  sang 
again.  Sometimes  I  swam  a  few  strokes,  but  in 
the  main  I  contented  myself  with  floating  and 
dreaming  long  drunken  dreams.  Before  day 
light,  the  chill  of  the  water  and  the  passage  of 
the  hours  had  sobered  me  sufficiently  to  make  me 
wonder  what  portion  of  the  Straits  I  was  in,  and 
also  to  wonder  if  the  turn  of  the  tide  would  n't 
catch  me  and  take  me  back  ere  I  had  drifted  out 
into  San  Pablo  Bay. 

Next  I  discovered  that  I  was  very  weary  and 
very  cold,  and  quite  sober,  and  that  I  did  n't  in  the 
least  want  to  be  drowned.  I  could  make  out 
the  Selby  Smelter  on  the  Contra  Costa  shore  and 
the  Mare  Island  lighthouse.  I  started  to  swim 
for  the  Solano  shore,  but  was  too  weak  and  chilled, 
and  made  so  little  headway,  and  at  the  cost  of 
so  painful  effort  that  I  gave  it  up  and  contented 
myself  with  floating,  now  and  then  giving  a  stroke 
to  keep  my  balance  in  the  tide-rips  which  were 
increasing  their  commotion  on  the  surface  of  the 
water.  And  I  knew  fear.  I  was  sober,  now, 
and  I  did  n't  want  to  die.  I  discovered  scores  of 
reasons  for  living.  And  the  more  reasons  I  dis 
covered,  the  more  liable  it  seemed  that  I  was  going 
to  drown  anyway. 

118 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

Daylight,  after  I  had  been  four  hours  in  the 
water,  found  me  in  a  parlous  condition  in  the  tide- 
rips  off  Mare  Island  light,  where  the  swift  ebbs 
from  Vallejo  Straits  and  Carquinez  Straits  were 
fighting  with  each  other,  and  where,  at  that  par 
ticular  moment,  they  were  fighting  the  flood  tide 
setting  up  against  them  from  San  Pablo  Bay.  A 
stiff  breeze  had  sprung  up,  and  the  crisp  little 
waves  were  persistently  lapping  into  my  mouth, 
and  I  was  beginning  to  swallow  salt  water.  With 
my  swimmer's  knowledge,  I  knew  the  end  was 
near.  And  then  the  boat  came — a  Greek  fisher 
man  running  in  for  Vallejo;  and  again  I  had  been 
saved  from  John  Barleycorn  by  my  constitution 
and  physical  vigor. 

And  in  passing,  let  me  note  that  this  maniacal 
trick  John  Barleycorn  played  me  is  nothing  un 
common.  An  absolute  statistic  of  the  percent 
age  of  suicides  due  to  John  Barleycorn  would  be 
appalling.  In  my  case,  healthy,  normal,  young, 
full  of  the  joy  of  life,  the  suggestion  to  kill  my 
self  was  unusual;  but  it  must  be  taken  into  ac 
count  that  it  came  on  the  heels  of  a  long  carouse, 
when  my  nerves  and  brain  were  fearfully  pois 
oned,  and  that  the  dramatic,  romantic  side  of 
my  imagination,  drink-maddened  to  lunacy,  was 

119 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

delighted  with  the  suggestion.  And  yet,  the 
older,  more  morbid  drinkers,  more  jaded  with  life 
and  more  disillusioned,  who  kill  themselves,  do 
so  usually  after  a  long  debauch,  when  their  nerves 
and  brains  are  thoroughly  poison-soaked. 


120 


CHAPTER  XIII 

SO  I  left  Benicia,  where  John  Barleycorn  had 
nearly  got  me,  and  ranged  wider  afield  in  pur 
suit  of  the  whisper  from  the  back  of  life  to  come 
and  find.  And  wherever  I  ranged,  the  way  lay 
along  alcohol-drenched  roads.  Men  still  congre 
gated  in  saloons.  They  were  the  poorman's  clubs, 
and  they  were  the  only  clubs  to  which  I  had  access. 
I  could  get  acquainted  in  saloons.  I  could  go 
into  a  saloon  and  talk  with  any  man.  In  the 
strange  towns  and  cities  I  wandered  through,  the 
only  place  for  me  to  go  was  the  saloon.  I  was 
no  longer  a  stranger  in  any  town  the  moment  I 
had  entered  a  saloon. 

And  right  here  let  me  break  in  with  experiences 
no  later  than  last  year.  I  harnessed  four  horses 
to  a  light  trap,  took  Chairman  along,  and  drove 
for  three  months  and  a  half  over  the  wildest  moun 
tain  parts  of  California  and  Oregon.  Each  morn 
ing  I  did  my  regular  day's  work  of  writing  fiction. 
That  completed,  I  drove  on  through  the  middle  of 

121 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

the  day  and  the  afternoon  to  the  next  stop.  But 
the  irregularity  of  occurrence  of  stopping  places, 
coupled  with  widely  varying  road  conditions, 
made  it  necessary  to  plan,  the  day  before,  each 
day's  drive  and  my  work.  I  must  know  when 
I  was  to  start  driving  in  order  to  start  writing  in 
time  to  finish  my  day's  output.  Thus,  on  occa 
sion,  when  the  drive  was  to  be  long,  I  would  be 
up  and  at  my  writing  by  five  in  the  morning.  On 
easier  driving  days  I  might  not  start  writing  till 
nine  o'clock. 

But  how  to  plan?  As  soon  as  I  arrived  in  a 
town,  and  put  the  horses  up,  on  the  way  from  the 
stable  to  the  hotel  I  dropped  into  the  saloons. 
First  thing,  a  drink — oh,  I  wanted  the  drink,  but 
also  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that,  because  of  want 
ing  to  know  things,  it  was  in  this  very  way  I  had 
learned  to  want  a  drink.  Well,  the  first  thing, 
a  drink.  "Have  something  yourself,"  to  the  bar 
keeper.  And  then,  as  we  drink,  my  opening 
query  about  roads  and  stopping-places  on  ahead. 

"Let  me  see,"  the  barkeeper  will  say,  "there  's 
the  road  across  Tarwater  Divide.  That  used  to 
be  good.  I  was  over  it  three  years  ago.  But  it 
was  blocked  this  spring.  .  .  .  Say,  I  '11  tell  you 
what.  I'll  ask  Jerry — "  And  the  barkeeper 

122 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

turns  and  addresses  some  men  sitting  at  a  table 
or  leaning  against  the  bar  farther  along,  and  who 
may  be  Jerry,  or  Tom,  or  Bill.  "Say,  Jerry,  how 
about  the  Tarwater  road^  You  was  down  to 
Wilkins  last  week." 

And  while  Bill  or  Jerry  or  Tom  is  beginning 
to  unlimber  his  thinking  and  speaking  apparatus, 
I  suggest  that  he  join  us  in  the  drink.  Then 
discussions  arise  about  the  advisability  of  this  road 
or  that,  what  the  best  stopping  places  may  be, 
what  running  time  I  may  expect  to  make,  where 
the  best  trout  streams  are,  and  so  forth,  in  which 
other  men  join,  and  which  are  punctuated  with 
more  drinks. 

Two  or  three  more  saloons,  and  I  accumulate 
a  warm  jingle  and  come  pretty  close  to  knowing 
everybody  in  town,  all  about  the  town,  and  a 
fair  deal  about  the  surrounding  country.  I  know 
the  lawyers,  editors,  business  men,  local  politi 
cians,  and  the  visiting  ranchers,  hunters,  and  mi 
ners,  so  that  by  evening,  when  Charmian  and  I 
stroll  down  the  main  street  and  back,  she  is  as 
tounded  by  the  number  of  my  acquaintances  in 
that  totally  strange  town. 

And  thus  is  demonstrated  a  service  John  Bar 
leycorn  renders,  a  service  by  which  he  increases 

123 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

his  power  over  men.  And  over  the  world,  wher 
ever  I  have  gone,  during  all  the  years,  it  has  been 
the  same.  It  may  be  a  cabaret  in  the  Latin  Quar 
ter,  a  cafe  in  some  obscure  Italian  village,  a  booz- 
ing-ken  in  sailor-town,  and  it  may  be  up  at  the 
club  over  Scotch  and  soda;  but  always  it  will  be 
where  John  Barleycorn  makes  fellowship  that  I 
get  immediately  in  touch,  and  meet,  and  know. 
And  in  the  good  days  coming,  when  John  Barley 
corn  will  have  been  banished  out  of  existence 
along  with  the  other  barbarians,  some  other  in 
stitution  than  the  saloon  will  have  to  obtain,  some 
other  congregating  place  of  men  where  strange 
men  and  stranger  men  may  get  in  touch,  and  meet, 
and  know. 

But  to  return  to  my  narrative.  When  I  turned 
my  back  on  Benicia,  my  way  led  through  saloons. 
I  had  developed  no  moral  theories  against  drink 
ing,  and  I  disliked  as  much  as  ever  the  taste  of 
the  stuff.  But  I  had  grown  respectfully  suspi 
cious  of  John  ^Barleycorn.  I  could  not  forget 
that  trick  he  had  played  on  me — on  me^  who  did 
not  want  to  die.  So  I  continued  to  drink,  and  to 
keep  a  sharp  eye  on  John  Barleycorn,  resolved  to 
resist  all  future  suggestions  of  self-destruction. 

In  strange  towns  I  made  immediate  acquaint- 
124 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

ances  in  the  saloons.  When  I  hoboed,  and  had  n't 
the  price  of  a  bed,  a  saloon  was  the  only  place  that 
would  receive  me  and  give  me  a  chair  by  the  fire. 
I  could  go  into  a  saloon  and  wash  up,  brush  my 
clothes,  and  comb  my  hair.  And  saloons  were 
always  so  damnably  convenient.  They  were 
everywhere  in  my  western  country. 

I  could  n't  go  into  the  dwellings  of  strangers 
that  way.  Their  doors  were  not  open  to  me;  no 
seats  were  there  for  me  by  their  fires.  Also, 
churches  and  preachers  I  had  never  known.  And 
from  what  I  did  n't  know  I  was  not  attracted 
toward  them.  Besides,  there  was  no  glamour 
about  them,  no  haze  of  romance,  no  promise  of 
adventure.  They  were  the  sort  with  whom  things 
never  happened.  They  lived  and  remained  al 
ways  in  the  one  place,  creatures  of  order  and  sys 
tem,  narrow,  limited,  restrained.  They  were 
without  greatness,  without  imagination,  without 
camaraderie.  It  was  the  good  fellows,  easy  and 
genial,  daring,  and,  on  occasion,  mad,  that  I 
wanted  to  know — the  fellows,  generous-hearted 
and  handed,  and  not  rabbit-hearted. 

And  here  is  another  complaint  I  bring  against 
John  Barleycorn.  It  is  these  good  fellows  that 
he  gets — the  fellows  with  the  fire  and  the  go  in 

125 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

them,  who  have  bigness,  and  warmness,  and  the 
best  of  the  human  weaknesses.  And  John  Bar 
leycorn  puts  out  the  fire,  and  soddens  the  agility, 
and,  when  he  does  not  more  immediately  kill 
them  or  make  maniacs  of  them,  he  coarsens  and 
grossens  them,  twists  and  mal forms  them  out  of 
the  original  goodness  and  fineness  of  their  na 
tures. 

Oh! — and  I  speak  out  of  later  knowledge — 
heaven  forefend  me  from  the  most  of  the  average 
run  of  male  humans  who  are  not  good  fellows — 
the  ones  cold  of  heart  and  cold  of  head  who  don't 
smoke,  drink,  nor  swear,  nor  do  much  of  anything 
else  that  is  brave,  and  resentful,  and  stinging,  be 
cause  in  their  feeble  fibers  there  has  never  been 
the  stir  and  prod  of  life  to  well  over  its  boundaries 
and  be  devilish  and  daring.  One  does  n't  meet 
these  in  saloons,  nor  rallying  to  lost  causes,  nor 
flaming  on  the  adventure-paths,  nor  loving  as 
God's  own  mad  lovers.  They  are  too  busy  keep 
ing  their  feet  dry,  conserving  their  heart-beats, 
and  making  unlovely  life-successes  of  their  spirit- 
mediocrity. 

And  so  I  draw  the  indictment  home  to  John 
Barleycorn.  It  is  just  these,  the  good  fellows, 
the  worth  while,  the  fellows  with  the  weakness 

126 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

of  too  much  strength,  too  much  spirit,  too  much 
fire  and  flame  of  fine  devilishness,  that  he  solicits 
and  ruins.  Of  course,  he  ruins  weaklings;  but 
with  them,  the  worst  we  breed,  I  am  not  here  con 
cerned.  My  concern  is  that  it  is  so  much  of  the 
best  we  breed  whom  John  Barleycorn  destroys. 
And  the  reason  why  these  best  are  destroyed  is 
because  John  Barleycorn  stands  on  every  high 
way  and  byway,  accessible,  law-protected,  saluted 
by  the  policeman  on  the  beat,  speaking  to  them, 
leading  them  by  the  hand  to  the  places  where  the 
good  fellows  and  daring  ones  foregather  and  drink 
deep.  With  John  Barleycorn  out  of  the  way, 
these  daring  ones  would  still  be  born,  and  they 
would  do  things  instead  of  perishing. 

Always  I  encountered  the  camaraderie  of  drink. 
I  might  be  walking  down  the  track  to  the  water- 
tank  to  lie  in  wait  for  a  passing  freight-train, 
when  I  would  chance  upon  a  bunch  of  "alki-stiffs." 
An  alki-stiff  is  a  tramp  who  drinks  druggist's  alco 
hol.  Immediately,  with  greeting  and  salutation, 
I  am  taken  into  the  fellowship.  The  alcohol, 
shrewdly  blended  with  water,  is  handed  to  me, 
and  soon  I  am  caught  up  in  the  revelry,  with  mag 
gots  crawling  in  my  brain  and  John  Barleycorn 
whispering  to  me  that  life  is  big,  and  that  we  are 

127 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

all  brave  and  fine — free  spirits  sprawling  like 
careless  gods  upon  the  turf  and  telling  the  two-by- 
four,  cut-and-dried,  conventional  world  to  go 
hang. 


128 


CHAPTER  XIV 

BACK  in  Oakland  from  my  .wanderings,  I  re 
turned  to  the  water-front  and  renewed  my 
comradeship  with  Nelson,  who  was  now  on  shore 
all  the  time  and  living  more  madly  than  before. 
I,  too,  spent  my  time  on  shore  with  him,  only 
occasionally  going  for  cruises  of  several  days  on 
the  bay  to  help  out  on  short-handed  scow-schoon 
ers. 

The  result  was  that  I  was  no  longer  reinvigor- 
ated  by  periods  of  open-air  abstinence  and  healthy 
toil.  I  drank  every  day,  and  whenever  oppor 
tunity  offered  I  drank  to  excess;  for  I  still  la 
bored  under  the  misconception  that  the  secret  of 
John  Barleycorn  lay  in  drinking  to  bestiality  and 
unconsciousness.  I  became  pretty  thoroughly  al 
cohol-soaked  during  this  period.  I  practically 
lived  in  saloons;  became  a  barroom  loafer,  and 
worse. 

And  right  here  was  John  Barleycorn  getting 
me  in  a  more  insidious  though  no  less  deadly  way 

129 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

than  when  he  nearly  sent  me  out  with  the  tide. 
I  had  a  few  months  still  to  run  before  I  was  seven 
teen;  I  scorned  the  thought  of  a  steady  job  at  any 
thing;  I  felt  myself  a  pretty  tough  individual  in 
a  group  of  pretty  tough  men ;  and  I  drank  because 
these  men  drank  and  because  I  had  to  make  good 
with  them.  I  had  never  had  a  real  boyhood,  and 
in  this,  my  precocious  manhood,  I  was  very  hard 
and  woefully  wise.  Though  I  had  never  known 
girl's  love  even,  I  had  crawled  through  such 
depths  that  I  was  convinced  absolutely  that  I 
knew  the  last  word  about  love  and  life.  And  it 
was  n't  a  pretty  knowledge.  Without  being 
pessimistic,  I  was  quite  satisfied  that  life  was  a 
rather  cheap  and  ordinary  affair. 

You  see,  John  Barleycorn  was  blunting  me. 
The  old  stings  and  prods  of  the  spirit  were  no 
longer  sharp.  Curiosity  was  leaving  me.  What 
did  it  matter  what  lay  on  the  other  side  of  the 
world*?  Men  and  women,  without  doubt,  very 
much  like  the  men  and  women  I  knew;  marrying 
and  giving  in  marriage  and  all  the  petty  run  of 
petty  human  concerns;  and  drinks,  too.  But  the 
other  side  of  the  world  was  a  long  way  to  go  for 
a  drink.  I  had  but  to  step  to  the  corner  and  get 
all  I  wanted  at  Joe  Vigy's.  Johnny  Heinhold 

130 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

still  ran  the  Last  Chance.  And  there  were  sa 
loons  on  all  the  corners  and  between  the  cor 
ners. 

The  whispers  from  the  back  of  life  were  grow 
ing  dim  as  my  mind  and  body  soddened.  The 
old  unrest  was  drowsy.  I  might  as  well  rot  and 
die  here  in  Oakland  as  anywhere  else.  And  I 
should  have  so  rotted  and  died  and  not  in 
very  long  order  either,  at  the  pace  John  Barley 
corn  was  leading  me,  had  the  matter  depended 
wholly  on  him.  I  was  learning  what  it  was  to 
have  no  appetite.  I  was  learning  what  it  was  to 
get  up  shaky  in  the  morning,  with  a  stomach  that 
quivered,  with  fingers  touched  with  palsy,  and  to 
know  the  drinker's  need  for  a  stiff  glass  of  whis 
ky  neat  in  order  to  brace  up.  (Oh!  John  Bar 
leycorn  is  a  wizard  dopester.  Brain  and  body, 
scorched  and  jangled  and  poisoned,  return  to  be 
tuned  up  by  the  very  poison  that  caused  the  dam 
age.) 

There  is  no  end  to  John  Barleycorn's  tricks. 
He  had  tried  to  inveigle  me  into  killing  myself. 
At  this  period  he  was  doing  his  best  to  kill  me  at 
a  fairly  rapid  pace.  But  not  satisfied  with  that, 
he  tried  another  dodge.  He  very  nearly  got  me, 
too,  and  right  there  I  learned  a  lesson  about  him 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

— became  a  wiser,  a  more  skilful  drinker.  I 
learned  there  were  limits  to  my  gorgeous  consti 
tution,  and  that  there  were  no  limits  to  John  Bar 
leycorn.  I  learned  that  in  a  short  hour  or  two  he 
could  master  my  strong  head,  my  broad  shoulders 
and  deep  chest,  put  me  on  my  back,  and  with  a 
devil's  grip  on  my  throat  proceed  to  choke  the  life 
out  of  me. 

Nelson  and  I  were  sitting  in  the  Overland 
House.  It  was  early  in  the  evening,  and  the  only 
reason  we  were  there  was  because  we  were  broke 
and  it  was  election  time.  You  see,  in  election 
time  local  politicians,  aspirants  for  office,  have  a 
way  of  making  the  rounds  of  the  saloons  to  get 
votes.  One  is  sitting  at  a  table,  in  a  dry  condi 
tion,  wondering  who  is  going  to  turn  up  and  buy 
him  a  drink,  or  if  his  credit  is  good  at  some  other 
saloon  and  if  it 's  worth  while  to  walk  that  far 
to  find  out,  when  suddenly  the  saloon  doors  swing 
wide  and  enters  a  bevy  of  well-dressed  men,  them 
selves  usually  wide  and  exhaling  an  atmosphere  of 
prosperity  and  fellowship. 

They  have  smiles  and  greetings  for  everybody — 
for  you,  without  the  price  of  a  glass  of  beer  in  your 
pocket,  for  the  timid  hobo  who  lurks  in  the  corner 
and  who  certainly  has  n't  a  vote  but  who  may 

132 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

establish  a  lodging-house  registration.  And  do 
you  know,  when  these  politicians  swing  wide  the 
doors  and  come  in,  with  their  broad  shoulders, 
their  deep  chests,  and  their  generous  stomachs 
which  cannot  help  making  them  optimists  and 
masters  of  life,  why,  you  perk  right  up.  It 's  go 
ing  to  be  a  warm  evening  after  all,  and  you  know 
you  '11  get  a  souse  started  at  the  very  least.  And 
— who  knows? — the  gods  may  be  kind,  other 
drinks  may  come,  and  the  night  culminate  in 
glorious  greatness.  And  the  next  thing  you  know, 
you  are  lined  up  at  the  bar,  pouring  drinks  down 
your  throat  and  learning  the  gentlemen's  names 
and  the  offices  which  they  hope  to  fill. 

It  was  during  this  period,  when  the  politicians 
went  their  saloon  rounds,  that  I  was  getting  bit 
ter  bits  of  education  and  having  illusions  punc 
tured — I,  who  had  pored  and  thrilled  over  "The 
Rail-Splitter,"  and  "From  Canal  Boy  to  Presi 
dent."  Yes,  I  was  learning  how  noble  politics 
and  politicians  are. 

Well,  on  this  night,  broke,  thirsty,  but  with  the 
drinker's  faith  in  the  unexpected  drink,  Nelson 
and  I  sat  in  the  Overland  House  waiting  for  some 
thing  to  turn  up,  especially  politicians.  And 
there  entered  Joe  Goose — he  of  the  unquenchable 

133 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

thirst,  the  wicked  eyes,  the  crooked  nose,  the 
flowered  vest. 

"Come  on,  fellows — free  booze — all  you  want 
of  it.  I  did  n't  want  you  to  miss  it." 

"Where?"  we  wanted  to  know. 

"Come  on.  I  '11  tell  you  as  we  go  along. 
We  have  n't  a  minute  to  Jose."  And  as  we  hur 
ried  up  town,  Joe  Goose  explained.  "It 's  the 
Hancock  Fire  Brigade.  All  you  have  to  do  is 
wear  a  red  shirt  and  a  helmet,  and  carry  a  torch. 
They  're  going  down  on  a  special  train  to  Hay- 
wards  to  parade." 

(I  think  the  place  was  Hay  wards.  It  may 
have  been  San  Leandro  or  Niles.  And,  to  save 
me,  I  can't  remember  whether  the  Hancock  Fire 
Brigade  was  a  Republican  or  a  Democratic  organ 
ization.  But  anyway,  the  politicians  who  ran  it 
were  short  of  torch-bearers,  and  anybody  who 
would  parade  could  get  drunk  if  he  wanted  to.) 

"The  town  '11  be  wide  open,"  Joe  Goose  went 
on.  "Booze?  It'll  run  like  water.  The  poli 
ticians  have  bought  the  stocks  of  the  saloons. 
There  '11  be  no  charge.  All  you  got  to  do  is  walk 
right  up  and  call  for  it.  We  '11  raise  hell." 

At  the  hall,  on  Eighth  Street  near  Broadway, 
we  got  into  the  firemen's  shirts  and  helmets,  were 

134 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

equipped  with  torches,  and,  growling  because  we 
were  n't  given  at  least  one  drink  before  we  started, 
were  herded  aboard  the  train.  Oh,  those  poli 
ticians  had  handled  our  kind  before.  At  Hay- 
wards  there  were  no  drinks  either.  Parade,  first, 
and  earn  your  booze,  was  the  order  of  the  night. 

We  paraded.  Then  the  saloons  were  opened. 
Extra  barkeepers  had  been  engaged,  and  the 
drinkers  jammed  six  deep  before  every  drink- 
drenched  and  unwiped  bar.  There  was  no  time 
to  wipe  the  bar,  nor  wash  glasses,  nor  do  anything 
save  fill  glasses.  The  Oakland  water-front  can 
be  real  thirsty  on  occasion. 

This  method  of  jamming  and  struggling  in 
front  of  the  bar  was  too  slow  for  us.  The  drink 
was  ours.  The  politicians  had  bought  it  for  us. 
We  'd  paraded  and  earned  it,  had  n't  we?  So  we 
made  a  flank  attack  around  the  end  of  the  bar, 
shoved  the  protesting  barkeepers  aside,  and 
helped  ourselves  to  bottles. 

Outside,  we  knocked  the  necks  of  the  bottles 
off  against  the  concrete  curbs,  and  drank.  Now 
Joe  Goose  and  Nelson  had  learned  discretion  with 
straight  whisky,  drunk  in  quantity.  I  had  n't : 
I  still  labored  under  the  misconception  that  one 
was  to  drink  all  he  could  get — especially  when  it 

135 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

did  n't  cost  anything.  We  shared  our  bottles 
with  others,  and  drank  a  good  portion  ourselves, 
while  I  drank  most  of  all.  And  I  did  n't  like  the 
stuff.  I  drank  it  as  I  had  drunk  beer  at  five,  and 
wine  at  seven.  I  mastered  my  qualms  and 
downed  it  like  so  much  medicine.  And  when 
we  wanted  more  bottles,  we  went  into  other  sa 
loons  where  the  free  drink  was  flowing,  and  helped 
ourselves. 

I  have  n't  the  slightest  idea  of  how  much  I 
drank — whether  it  was  two  quarts  or  five.  I  do 
know  that  I  began  the  orgy  with  half-pint 
draughts  and  with  no  water  afterward  to  wash 
the  taste  away  and  to  dilute  the  whisky. 

Now  the  politicians  were  too  wise  to  leave  the 
town  filled  with  drunks  from  the  water-front  of 
Oakland.  When  train  time  came,  there  was  a 
round-up  of  the  saloons.  Already  I  was  feeling 
the  impact  of  the  whisky.  Nelson  and  I  were 
hustled  out  of  a  saloon,  and  found  ourselves  in 
the  very  last  rank  of  a  disorderly  parade.  I 
struggled  along  heroically,  my  correlations  break 
ing  down,  my  legs  tottering  under  me,  my  head 
swimming,  my  heart  pounding,  my  lungs  panting 
for  air. 

My  helplessness  was  coming  on  so  rapidly  that 
136 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

my  reeling  brain  told  me  I  would  go  down  and 
out  and  never  reach  the  train  if  I  remained  at  the 
rear  of  the  procession.  I  left  the  ranks  and  ran 
down  a  pathway  beside  the  road  under  broad- 
spreading  trees.  Nelson  pursued  me,  laughing. 
Certain  things  stand  out,  as  in  memories  of  night 
mare.  I  remember  those  trees  especially,  and  my 
desperate  running  along  under  them,  and  how, 
every  time  I  fell,  roars  of  laughter  went  up  from 
the  other  drunks.  They  thought  I  was  merely 
antic  drunk.  They  did  not  dream  that  John 
Barleycorn  had  me  by  the  throat  in  a  death- 
clutch.  But  I  knew  it.  And  I  remember  the 
fleeting  bitterness  that  was  mine  as  I  realized  that 
I  was  in  a  struggle  with  death  and  that  these  others 
did  not  know.  It  was  as  if  I  were  drowning  be 
fore  a  crowd  of  spectators  who  thought  I  was 
cutting  up  tricks  for  their  entertainment. 

And  running  there  under  the  trees,  I  fell  and 
lost  consciousness.  What  happened  afterward, 
with  one  glimmering  exception,  I  had  to  be  told. 
Nelson,  with  his  enormous  strength,  picked  me 
up  and  dragged  me  on  and  aboard  the  train. 
When  he  had  got  me  into  a  seat,  I  fought  and 
panted  so  terribly  for  air  that  even  with  his  ob- 
tuseness  he  knew  I  was  in  a  bad  way.  And  right 

137 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

there,  at  any  moment,  I  know  now,  I  might  have 
died.  I  often  think  it  is  the  nearest  to  death  I 
have  ever  been.  I  have  only  Nelson's  description 
of  my  behavior  to  go  by. 

I  was  scorching  up,  burning  alive  internally, 
in  an  agony  of  fire  and  suffocation,  and  I  wanted 
air.  I  madly  wanted  air.  My  efforts  to  raise 
a  window  were  vain,  for  all  the  windows  in  the 
car  were  screwed  down.  Nelson  had  seen  drink- 
crazed  men,  and  thought  I  wanted  to  throw  my 
self  out.  He  tried  to  restrain  me,  but  I  fought 
on.  I  seized  some  man's  torch  and  smashed  the 
glass. 

Now  there  were  pro-Nelson  and  anti-Nelson 
factions  on  the  Oakland  water-front,  and  men  of 
both  factions,  with  more  drink  in  them  than  was 
good,  filled  the  car.  My  smashing  of  the  win 
dow  was  the  signal  for  the  anti's.  One  of  them 
reached  for  me,  and  dropped  me,  and  started  the 
fight,  of  all  of  which  I  have  no  knowledge  save 
what  was  told  me  afterward,  and  a  sore  jaw  next 
day  from  the  blow  that  put  me  out.  The  man 
who  struck  me  went  down  across  my  body,  Nelson 
followed  him,  and  they  say  there  were  few  un 
broken  windows  in  the  wreckage  of  the  car  that 
followed  as  the  free-for-all  fight  had  its  course. 

138 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

This  being  knocked  cold  and  motionless  was 
perhaps  the  best  thing  that  could  have  happened 
to  me.  My  violent  struggles  had  only  acceler 
ated  my  already  dangerously  accelerated  heart, 
and  increased  the  need  for  oxygen  in  my  suffocat 
ing  lungs. 

After  the  fight  was  over  and  I  came  to,  I  did 
not  come  to  myself.  I  was  no  more  myself  than 
a  drowning  man  is  who  continues  to  struggle  after 
he  has  lost  consciousness.  I  have  no  memory  of 
my  actions,  but  I  cried  "Air!  Air!"  so  insist 
ently,  that  it  dawned  on  Nelson  that  I  did  not 
contemplate  self-destruction.  So  he  cleared  the 
jagged  glass  from  the  window  ledge  and  let  me 
stick  my  head  and  shoulders  out.  He  realized, 
partially,  the  seriousness  of  my  condition,  and 
held  me  by  the  waist  to  prevent  me  from  crawl 
ing  farther  out.  And  for  the  rest  of  the  run  in 
to  Oakland  I  kept  my  head  and  shoulders  out, 
fighting  like  a  maniac  whenever  he  tried  to  draw 
me  inside. 

And  here  my  one  glimmering  streak  of  true 
consciousness  came.  My  sole  recollection,  from 
the  time  I  fell  under  the  trees  until  I  awoke  the 
following  evening,  is  of  my  head  out  the  window, 
facing  the  wind  caused  by  the  train,  cinders 

139 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

striking  and  burning  and  blinding  me,  while  I 
breathed  with  will.  All  my  will  was  concen 
trated  on  breathing — on  breathing  the  air  in  the 
hugest  lung-full  gulps  I  could,  pumping  the 
greatest  amount  of  air  into  my  lungs  in  the  short 
est  possible  time.  It  was  that  or  death,  and  I  was 
a  swimmer  and  diver  and  I  knew  it;  and  in  the 
most  intolerable  agony  of  prolonged  suffocation, 
during  those  moments  I  was  conscious,  I  faced  the 
wind  and  the  cinders  and  breathed  for  life. 

All  the  rest  is  a  blank.  I  came  too  the  follow 
ing  evening,  in  a  water-front  lodging-house.  I 
was  alone.  No  doctor  had  been  called  in.  And 
I  might  well  have  died  there,  for  Nelson  and  the 
others,  deeming  me  merely  "sleeping  off  my 
drunk,"  had  let  me  lie  there  in  a  comatose  condi 
tion  for  seventeen  hours.  Many  a  man,  as  every 
doctor  knows,  has  died  of  the  sudden  impact  of  a 
quart  or  more  of  whisky.  Usually  one  reads  of 
them  so  dying,  strong  drinkers,  on  account  of  a  wa 
ger.  But  I  did  n't  know  .  .  .  then.  And  so  I 
learned ;  and  by  no  virtue  nor  prowess,  but  simply 
through  good  fortune  and  constitution.  Again 
my  constitution  had  triumphed  over  John  Barley 
corn.  I  had  escaped  from  another  death-pit, 
dragged  myself  through  another  morass,  and  peri- 

140 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

lously  acquired  the  discretion  that  would  enable 
me  to  drink  wisely  for  many  another  year  to  come. 
Heavens !  That  was  twenty  years  ago,  and  I 
am  still  very  much  and  wisely  alive;  and  I  have 
seen  much,  done  much,  lived  much,  in  that  in 
tervening  score  of  years;  and  I  shudder  when  I 
think  how  close  a  shave  I  ran,  how  near  I  was 
to  missing  that  splendid  fifth  of  a  century  that 
has  been  mine.  And,  oh,  it  was  n't  John  Barley 
corn's  fault  that  he  did  n't  get  me  that  night  of 
the  Hancock  Fire  Brigade. 


141 


CHAPTER  XV 

IT  was  during  the  early  winter  of  1892  that  I 
resolved  to  go  to  sea.  My  Hancock  Fire  Bri 
gade  experience  was  very  little  responsible  for 
this.  I  still  drank  and  frequented  saloons — prac 
tically  lived  hi  saloons.  Whisky  was  dangerous, 
in  my  opinion,  but  not  wrong.  Whisky  was 
dangerous,  like  other  dangerous  things  in  the 
natural  world.  Men  died  of  whisky;  but  then, 
too,  fishermen  were  capsized  and  drowned,  hoboes 
fell  under  trains  and  were  cut  to  pieces.  To  cope 
with  winds  and  waves,  railroad  trains,  and  bar 
rooms,  one  must  use  judgment.  To  get  drunk 
after  the  manner  of  men  was  all  right,  but  one 
must  do  it  with  discretion.  No  more  quarts  of 
whisky  for  me. 

What  really  decided  me  to  go  to  sea  was  that 
I  had  caught  my  first  vision  of  the  death-road 
which  John  Barleycorn  maintains  for  his  devo 
tees.  It  was  not  a  clear  vision,  however,  and 
there  were  two  phases  of  it,  somewhat  jumbled  at 

142 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

the  time.  It  struck  me,  from  watching  those 
with  whom  I  associated,  that  the  life  we  were  liv 
ing  was  more  destructive  than  that  lived  by  the 
average  man. 

John  Barleycorn,  by  inhibiting  morality,  in 
cited  to  crime.  Everywhere  I  saw  men  doing, 
drunk,  what  they  would  never  dream  of  doing 
sober.  And  this  was  n't  the  worst  of  it.  It  was 
the  penalty  that  must  be  paid.  Crime  was  de 
structive.  Saloon-mates  I  drank  with,  who  were 
good  fellows  and  harmless,  sober,  did  most  vio 
lent  and  lunatic  things  when  they  were  drunk. 
And  then  the  police  gathered  them  in  and  they 
vanished  from  our  ken.  Sometimes  I  visited  them 
behind  the  bars  and  said  good-by  ere  they  jour 
neyed  across  the  bay  to  put  on  the  felon's  stripes. 
And  time  and  again  I  heard  the  one  explanation : 
//  I  had  n't  been  drunk  I  would  n't  a-done  it. 
And  sometimes,  under  the  spell  of  John  Barley 
corn,  the  most  frightful  things  were  done — things 
that  shocked  even  my  case-hardened  soul. 

The  other  phase  of  the  death-road  was  that  of 
the  habitual  drunkards,  who  had  a  way  of  turn 
ing  up  their  toes  without  apparent  provocation. 
When  they  took  sick,- even  with  trifling  afflictions 
that  any  ordinary  man  could  pull  through,  they 

H3 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

just  pegged  out.  Sometimes  they  were  found  un 
attended  and  dead  in  their  beds ;  on  occasion  their 
bodies  were  dragged  out  of  the  water;  and  some 
times  it  was  just  plain  accident,  as  when  Bill 
Kelly,  unloading  cargo  while  drunk,  had  a  finger 
jerked  off,  which,  under  the  circumstances,  might 
just  as  easily  have  been  his  head. 

So  I  considered  my  situation  and  knew  that  I 
was  getting  into  a  bad  way  of  living.  It  made 
toward  death  too  quickly  to  suit  my  youth  and 
vitality.  And  there  was  only  one  way  out  of 
this  hazardous  manner  of  living  and  that  was  to 
get  out.  The  sealing-fleet  was  wintering  in  San 
Francisco  Bay,  and  in  the  saloons  I  met  skippers, 
mates,  hunters,  boat-steerers,  and  boat-pullers.  I 
met  the  seal-hunter,  Pete  Holt,  and  agreed  to  be 
his  boat-puller  and  to  sign  on  any  schooner  he 
signed  on.  And  I  had  to  have  half-a-dozen  drinks 
with  Pete  Holt  there  and  then  to  seal  our  agree 
ment. 

And  at  once  awoke  all  my  old  unrest  that  John 
Barleycorn  had  put  to  sleep.  I  found  myself 
actually  bored  with  the  saloon-life  of  the  Oak 
land  water-front,  and  wondered  what  I  had  ever 
found  fascinating  in  it.  Also,  with  this  death- 
road  concept  in  my  brain,  I  began  to  grow  afraid 

144 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

that  something  would  happen  to  me  before  sailing 
day,  which  was  set  for  some  time  in  January.  I 
lived  more  circumspectly,  drank  less  deeply,  and 
went  home  more  frequently.  When  drinking 
grew  too  wild,  I  got  out.  When  Nelson  was  in 
his  maniacal  cups,  I  managed  to  get  separated 
from  him. 

On  the  twelfth  of  January,  1893,  I  was  seven 
teen,  and  the  twentieth  of  January  I  signed  be 
fore  the  shipping  commissioner  the  articles  of  the 
Sophie  Sutherland,  a  three  topmast  sealing 
schooner  bound  on  a  voyage  to  the  coast  of  Japan. 
And  of  course  we  had  to  drink  on  it.  Joe  Vigy 
cashed  my  advance  note,  and  Pete  Holt  treated, 
and  I  treated,  and  Joe  Vigy  treated,  and  other 
hunters  treated.  Well,  it  was  the  way  of  men, 
and  who  was  I,  just  turned  seventeen,  that  I 
should  decline  the  way  of  life  of  these  fine,  chesty, 
man-grown  men  ? 


CHAPTER  XVI 

THERE  was  nothing  to  drink  on  the  Sophie 
Sutherland,  and  we  had  fifty-one  days  of 
glorious  sailing,  taking  the  southern  passage  in  the 
northeast  trades  to  Bonin  Islands.  This  isolated 
group,  belonging  to  Japan,  had  been  selected  as 
the  rendezvous  of  the  Canadian  and  American 
sealing-fleets.  Here  they  filled  their  water-bar 
rels  and  made  repairs  before  starting  on  the  hun 
dred  days'  harrying  of  the  seal-herd  along  the 
northern  coasts  of  Japan  to  Behring  Sea. 

Those  fifty-one  days  of  fine  sailing  and  intense 
sobriety  had  put  me  in  splendid  fettle.  The  al 
cohol  had  been  worked  out  of  my  system,  and 
from  the  moment  the  voyage  began  I  had  not 
known  the  desire  for  a  drink.  I  doubt  if  I  even 
thought  once  about  a  drink.  Often,  of  course, 
the  talk  in  the  forecastle  turned  on  drink,  and  the 
men  told  of  their  more  exciting  or  humorous 
drunks,  remembering  such  passages  more  keenly, 
with  greater  delight,  than  all  the  other  passages 
of  their  adventurous  lives. 

146 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

In  the  forecastle,  the  oldest  man,  fat  and  fifty, 
was  Louis.  He  was  a  broken  skipper.  John 
Barleycorn  had  thrown  him,  and  he  was  winding 
up  his  career  where  he  had  begun  it,  in  the  fore 
castle.  His  case  made  quite  an  impression  on 
me.  John  Barleycorn  did  other  things  beside  kill 
a  man.  He  had  n't  killed  Louis.  He  had  done 
much  worse.  He  had  robbed  him  of  power  and 
place  and  comfort,  crucified  his  pride,  and  con 
demned  him  to  the  hardship  of  the  common  sailor 
that  would  last  as  long  as  his  healthy  breath  lasted, 
which  promised  to  be  for  a  long  time. 

We  completed  our  run  across  the  Pacific,  lifted 
the  volcanic  peaks,  jungle-clad,  of  the  Bonin 
Islands,  sailed  in  among  the  reefs  to  the  land 
locked  harbor,  and  let  our  anchor  rumble  down 
where  lay  a  score  or  more  of  sea-gipsies  like  our- 
self.  The  scents  of  strange  vegetation  blew  off 
the  tropic  land.  Aborigines,  in  queer  outrigger 
canoes,  and  Japanese,  in  queerer  sampans, 
paddled  about  the  bay  and  came  aboard.  It  was 
my  first  foreign  land ;  I  had  won  to  the  other  side 
of  the  world,  and  I  would  see  all  I  had  read  in 
the  books  come  true.  I  was  wild  to  get  ashore. 

Victor  and  Axel,  a  Swede  and  a  Norwegian, 
and  I  planned  to  keep  together.  (And  so  well 

H7 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

did  we,  that  for  the  rest  of  the  cruise  we  were 
known  as  the  "Three  Sports.")  Victor  pointed 
out  a  pathway  that  disappeared  up  a  wild  canyon, 
emerged  on  a  steep,  bare  lava-slope,  and  there 
after  appeared  and  disappeared,  ever  climbing, 
among  the  palms  and  flowers.  We  would  go  over 
that  path,  he  said,  and  we  agreed,  and  we  would 
see  beautiful  scenery,  and  strange  native  villages, 
and  find  Heaven  alone  knew  what  adventure  at 
the  end.  And  Axel  was  keen  to  go  fishing.  The 
three  of  us  agreed  to  that,  too.  We  would  get 
a  sampan,  and  a  couple  of  Japanese  fishermen 
who  knew  the  fishing  grounds,  and  we  would  have 
great  sport.  As  for  me,  I  was  keen  for  anything. 

And  then,  our  plans  made,  we  rowed  ashore 
over  the  banks  of  living  coral  and  pulled  our 
boat  up  the  white  beach  of  coral  sand.  We 
walked  across  the  fringe  of  beach  under  the  co- 
coanut  palms  and  into  the  little  town,  and  found 
several  hundred  riotous  seamen  from  all  the  world, 
drinking  prodigiously,  singing  prodigiously,  dan 
cing  prodigiously — and  all  on  the  main  street  to 
the  scandal  of  a  helpless  handful  of  Japanese  po 
lice. 

Victor  and  Axel  said  we  'd  have  a  drink  before 
we  started  on  our  long  walk.  Could  I  decline  to 

148 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

drink  with  these  two  chesty  shipmates'?  Drink 
ing  together,  glass  in  hand,  put  the  seal  on  com 
radeship.  It  was  the  way  of  life.  Our  teetotaler 
owner-captain  was  laughed  at,  and  sneered  at,  by 
all  of  us  because  of  his  teetotalism.  I  did  n't  in 
the  least  want  a  drink,  but  I  did  want  to  be  a 
good  fellow  and  a  good  comrade.  Nor  did 
Louis'  case  deter  me,  as  I  poured  the  biting,  scorch 
ing  stuff  down  my  throat.  John  Barleycorn  had 
thrown  Louis  to  a  nasty  fall,  but  I  was  young. 
My  blood  ran  full  and  red;  I  had  a  constitution 
of  iron;  and — well,  youth  ever  grins  scornfully 
at  the  wreckage  of  age. 

Queer,  fierce,  alcoholic  stuff  it  was  that  we 
drank.  There  was  no  telling  where  or  how  it  had 
been  manufactured — some  native  concoction, 
most  likely.  But  it  was  hot  as  fire,  pale  as  water, 
and  quick  as  death  with  its  kick.  It  had  been 
filled  into  empty  "square-face"  bottles  which  had 
once  contained  Holland  gin  and  which  still  bore 
the  fitting  legend:  "Anchor  Brand."  It  cer 
tainly  anchored  us.  We  never  got  out  of  the 
town.  We  never  went  fishing  in  the  sampan. 
And  though  we  were  there  ten  days,  we  never 
trod  that  wild  path  along  the  lava-cliffs  and 
among  the  flowers. 

149 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

We  met  old  acquaintances  from  other  schoon 
ers,  fellows  we  had  met  in  the  saloons  of  San 
Francisco  before  we  sailed.  And  each  meeting 
meant  a  drink ;  and  there  was  much  to  talk  about ; 
and  more  drinks ;  and  songs  to  be  sung ;  and  pranks 
and  antics  to  be  performed;  until  the  maggots  of 
imagination  began  to  crawl,  and  it  all  seemed 
great  and  wonderful  to  me,  these  lusty,  hard-bit 
ten  sea-rovers,  of  whom  I  made  one,  gathered  in 
wassail  on  a  coral  strand.  Old  lines  about 
knights  at  table  in  the  great  banquet-halls,  and 
of  those  above  the  salt  and  below  the  salt,  and  of 
Vikings  feasting  fresh  from  sea  and  ripe  for 
battle,  came  to  me ;  and  I  knew  that  the  old  times 
were  not  dead  and  that  we  belonged  to  that  self 
same  ancient  breed. 

By  mid-afternoon  Victor  went  mad  with  drink, 
and  wanted  to  fight  everybody  and  everything. 
I  have  since  seen  lunatics  in  the  violent  wards 
of  asylums  that  seemed  to  behave  in  no  wise  dif 
ferent  from  Victor's  way,  save  that  perhaps  he 
was  more  violent.  Axel  and  I  interfered  as 
peace-makers,  were  roughed  and  jostled  in  the 
mix-ups,  and  finally,  with  infinite  precaution  and 
intoxicated  cunning,  succeeded  in  inveigling  our 

150 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

chum  down  to  the  boat  and  in  rowing  him  aboard 
our  schooner. 

But  no  sooner  did  Victor's  feet  touch  the  deck, 
than  he  began  to  clean  up  the  ship.  He  had  the 
strength  of  several  men,  and  he  ran  amuck  with 
it.  I  remember  especially  one  man  whom  he  got 
into  the  chain-boxes  but  failed  to  damage  through 
inability  to  hit  him.  The  man  dodged  and 
ducked,  and  Victor  broke  the  knuckles  of  both 
his  fists  against  the  huge  links  of  the  anchor  chain. 
By  the  time  we  dragged  him  out  of  that,  his  mad 
ness  had  shifted  to  the  belief  that  he  was  a  great 
swimmer,  and  the  next  moment  he  was  overboard 
and  demonstrating  his  ability  by  floundering  like 
a  sick  porpoise  and  swallowing  much  salt  water. 

We  rescued  him,  and  by  the  time  we  got  him 
below,  undressed,  and  into  his  bunk,  we  were 
wrecks  ourselves.  But  Axel  and  I  wanted  to  see 
more  of  shore,  and  away  we  went,  leaving  Victor 
snoring.  It  was  curious,  the  judgment  passed  on 
Victor  by  his  shipmates,  drinkeis  themselves. 
They  shook  their  heads  disapprovingly  and  mut 
tered:  "A  man  like  that  oughtn't  to  drink." 
Now  Victor  was  the  smartest  sailor  and  best- 
tempered  shipmate  in  the  forecastle.  He  was  an 

15* 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

all-around  splendid  type  of  seaman;  his  mates 
recognized  his  worth,  and  respected  him  and  liked 
him.  Yet  John  Barleycorn  metamorphosed  him 
into  a  violent  lunatic.  And  that  was  the  very 
point  these  drinkers  made.  They  knew  that 
drink — and  drink  with  a  sailor  is  always  excessive 
— made  them  mad,  but  only  mildly  mad.  Vio 
lent  madness  was  objectionable  because  it  spoiled 
the  fun  of  others  and  often  culminated  in  tragedy. 
From  their  standpoint,  mild  madness  was  all 
right.  But  from  the  standpoint  of  the  whole 
human  race,  is  not  all  madness  objectionable? 
And  is  there  a  greater  maker  of  madness  of  all 
sorts  than  John  Barleycorn? 

But  to  return.  Ashore,  snugly  ensconced  in  a 
Japanese  house  of  entertainment,  Axel  and  I  com 
pared  bruises,  and  over  a  comfortable  drink  talked 
of  the  afternoon's  happenings.  We  liked  the 
quietness  of  that  drink  and  took  another.  A  ship 
mate  dropped  in,  several  shipmates  dropped  in, 
and  we  had  more  quiet  drinks.  Finally,  just  as 
we  had  engaged  a  Japanese  orchestra,  and  as  the 
first  strains  of  the  samisens  and  taikos  were  rising, 
through  the  paper-walls  came  a  wild  howl  from 
the  street.  We  recognized  it.  Still  howling, 
disdaining  doorways,  with  bloodshot  eyes  and 

1J2 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

wildly  waving  muscular  arms,  Victor  burst  upon 
us  through  the  fragile  walls.  The  old  amuck  rage 
was  on  him,  and  he  wanted  blood,  anybody's 
blood.  The  orchestra  fled ;  so  did  we.  We  went 
through  doorways,  and  we  went  through  paper- 
walls — anything  to  get  away. 

And  after  the  place  was  half  wrecked,  and  we 
had  agreed  to  pay  the  damage,  leaving  Victor 
partly  subdued  and  showing  symptoms  of  lapsing 
into  a  comatose  state,  Axel  and  I  wandered  away 
in  quest  of  a  quieter  drinking-place.  The  main 
street  was  a  madness.  Hundreds  of  sailors  rol 
licked  up  and  down.  Because  the  chief  of  police 
with  his  small  force  was  helpless,  the  Governor 
of  the  colony  had  issued  orders  to  the  captains  to 
have  all  their  men  on  board  by  sunset. 

What!  To  be  treated  in  such  fashion!  As 
the  news  spread  among  the  schooners,  they  were 
emptied.  Everybody  came  ashore.  Men  who 
had  had  no  intention  of  coming  ashore,  climbed 
into  the  boats.  The  unfortunate  governor's 
ukase  had  precipitated  a  general  debauch  for  all 
hands.  It  was  hours  after  sunset,  and  the  men 
wanted  to  see  anybody  try  to  put  them  on  board. 
They  went  around  inviting  the  authorities  to  try 
to  put  them  on  board.  In  front  of  the  govern- 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

or's  house  they  were  gathered  thickest,  bawling 
sea-songs,  circulating  square-faces,  and  dancing 
uproarious  Virginia  reels  and  old-country  dances. 
The  police,  including  the  reserves,  stood  in  little 
forlorn  groups,  waiting  for  the  command  the  gov 
ernor  was  too  wise  to  issue.  And  I  thought  this 
saturnalia  was  great.  It  was  like  the  old  days  of 
the  Spanish  Main  come  back.  It  was  license;  it 
was  adventure.  And  I  was  part  of  it,  a  chesty 
sea-rover  along  with  all  these  other  chesty  sea- 
rovers  among  the  paper  houses  of  Japan. 

The  governor  never  issued  the  order  to  clear  the 
streets,  and  Axel  and  I  wandered  on  from  drink 
to  drink.  After  a  time,  in  some  of  the  antics, 
getting  hazy  myself,  I  lost  him.  I  drifted  along, 
making  new  acquaintances,  downing  more  drinks, 
getting  hazier  and  hazier.  I  remember,  some 
where,  sitting  in  a  circle  with  Japanese  fisher 
men,  kanaka  boat-steerers  from  our  own  vessels, 
and  a  young  Danish  sailor  fresh  from  cowboying 
in  the  Argentine  and  with  a  penchant  for  native 
customs  and  ceremonials.  And  with  due  and 
proper  and  most  intricate  Japanese  ceremonial, 
we  of  the  circle  drank  sake,  pale,  mild,  and  luke 
warm,  from  tiny  porcelain  bowls. 

And,  later,  I  remember  the  runaway  appren- 

154 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

tices — boys  of  eighteen  and  twenty,  of  middle 
class  English  families,  who  had  jumped  their  ships 
and  apprenticeships  in  various  ports  of  the  world 
and  drifted  into  the  forecastles  of  the  sailing 
schooners.  They  were  healthy,  smooth-skinned, 
clear-eyed,  and  they  were  young — youths  like  me, 
learning  the  way  of  their  feet  in  the  world  of  men. 
And  they  were  men.  No  mild  sake  for  them,  but 
square-faces  illicitly  refilled  with  corrosive  fire  that 
flamed  through  their  veins  and  burst  into  con 
flagrations  in  their  heads.  I  remember  a  melt 
ing  song  they  sang,  the  refrain  of  which  was: 

'T  is  but  a  little    golden  ring, 
I  give  it  to  thee  with  pride, 
Wear  it  for  your  mother's  sake 
When  you  are  on  the  tide. 

They  wept  over  it  as  they  sang  it,  the  graceless 
young  scamps  who  had  all  broken  their  mothers' 
prides,  and  I  sang  with  them,  and  wept  with  them, 
and  luxuriated  in  the  pathos  and  the  tragedy  of 
it,  and  struggled  to  make  glimmering  inebriated 
generalizations  on  life  and  romance.  And  one 
last  picture  I  have,  standing  out  very  clear  and 
bright  in  the  midst  of  vagueness  before  and  black 
ness  afterward.  We — the  apprentices  and  I — 

155 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

are  swaying  and  clinging  to  one  another  under 
the  stars.  We  are  singing  a  rollicking  sea-song, 
all  save  one  who  sits  on  the  ground  and  weeps; 
and  we  are  marking  the  rhythm  with  waving 
square-faces.  From  up  and  down  the  street  come 
far  choruses  of  sea-voices  similarly  singing,  and 
life  is  great,  and  beautiful,  and  romantic,  and 
magnificently  mad. 

And  next,  after  the  blackness,  I  open  my  eyes 
in  the  early  dawn  to  see  a  Japanese  woman,  so 
licitously  anxious,  bending  over  me.  She  is  the 
port-pilot's  wife,  and  I  am  lying  in  her  doorway. 
I  am  chilled  and  shivering,  sick  with  the  after 
sickness  of  debauch.  And  I  feel  lightly  clad. 
Those  rascals  of  run-away  apprentices!  They 
have  acquired  the  habit  of  running  away.  They 
have  run  away  with  my  possessions.  My  watch 
is  gone.  My  few  dollars  are  gone.  My  coat  is 
gone.  So  is  my  belt.  And  yes,  my  shoes. 

And  the  foregoing  is  a  sample  of  the  ten  days 
I  spent  in  the  Bonin  Islands.  Victor  got  over  his 
lunacy,  rejoined  Axel  and  me,  and  after  that  we 
caroused  somewhat  more  discreetly.  And  we 
never  climbed  that  lava  path  among  the  flowers. 
The  town  and  the  square-faces  were  all  we  saw. 

One  who  has  been  burned  by  fire  must  preach 

156 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

about  the  fire.  I  might  have  seen  and  healthily 
enjoyed  a  whole  lot  more  of  the  Bonin  Islands,  if 
I  had  done  what  I  ought  to  have  done.  But,  as 
I  see  it,  it  is  not  a  matter  of  what  one  ought  to 
do,  or  ought  not  to  do.  It  is  what  one  does  do. 
That  is  the  everlasting,  irrefragable  fact.  I  did 
just  what  I  did.  I  did  what  all  those  men  did 
in  the  Bonin  Islands.  I  did  what  millions  of 
men  over  the  world  were  doing  at  that  particu 
lar  point  in  time.  I  did  it  because  the  way  led 
to  it,  because  I  was  only  a  human  boy,  a  creature 
of  my  environment,  and  neither  an  anemic  nor  a 
god.  I  was  just  human,  and  I  was  taking  the 
path  in  the  world  that  men  took — men  whom  I  ad 
mired,  if  you  please;  full-blooded  men,  lusty, 
breedy,  chesty  men,  free  spirits  and  anything  but 
niggards  in  the  way  they  foamed  life  away. 

And  the  way  was  open.  It  was  like  an  uncov 
ered  well  in  a  yard  where  children  play.  It  is 
small  use  to  tell  the  brave  little  boys  toddling 
their  way  along  into  knowledge  of  life  that  they 
mustn't  play  near  the  uncovered  well.  They 
will  play  near  it.  Any  parent  knows  that.  And 
we  know  that  a  certain  percentage  of  them,  the 
livest  and  most  daring,  will  fall  into  the  well. 
The  thing  to  do — we  all  know  it — is  to  cover  up 

157 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

the  well.  The  case  is  the  same  with  John  Bar 
leycorn.  All  the  no-saying  and  no-preaching  in 
the  world  will  fail  to  keep  men,  and  youths  grow 
ing  into  manhood,  away  from  John  Barleycorn 
when  John  Barleycorn  is  everywhere  accessible, 
and  where  John  Barleycorn  is  everywhere  the 
connotation  of  manliness,  and  daring,  and  great- 
spiritedness. 

The  only  rational  thing  for  the  twentieth  cen 
tury  folk  to  do  is  to  cover  up  the  well;  to  make 
the  twentieth  century  in  truth  the  twentieth  cen 
tury,  and  to  relegate  to  the  nineteenth  century  and 
all  the  preceding  centuries  the  things  of  those  cen 
turies,  the  witch-burnings,  the  intolerances,  the 
fetiches,  and,  not  least  among  such  barbarisms, 
John  Barleycorn. 


158 


CHAPTER  XVII 

NORTH  we  raced  from  the  Bonin  Islands  to 
pick  up  the  seal-herd,  and  north  we  hunted 
it  for  a  hundred  days  into  frosty,  wintry  weather 
and  into  and  through  vast  fogs  which  hid  the  sun 
from  us  for  a  week  at  a  time.  It  was  wild  and 
heavy  work  off  the  Siberian  coast,  without  a  drink 
or  thought  of  drink.  Then  we  sailed  south  to 
Yokohama,  with  a  big  catch  of  skins  in  our  salt 
and  a  heavy  pay-day  coming. 

I  was  eager  to  be  ashore  and  see  Japan,  but  the 
first  day  was  devoted  to  ship's  work,  and  not  un 
til  evening  did  we  sailors  land.  And  here,  by  the 
very  system  of  things,  by  the  way  life  was  or 
ganized  and  men  transacted  affairs,  John  Barley 
corn  reached  out  and  tucked  my  arm  in  his.  The 
captain  had  given  money  for  us  to  the  hunters,  and 
the  hunters  were  waiting  in  a  certain  Japanese 
public  house  for  us  to  come  and  get  it.  We  rode 
to  the  place  in  rickshaws.  Our  own  crowd  had 
taken  possession  of  it.  Drink  was  flowing. 

159 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

Everybody  had  money,  and  everybody  was  treat 
ing.  After  the  hundred  days  of  hard  toil  and  ab 
solute  abstinence,  in  the  pink  of  physical  condi 
tion,  bulging  with  health,  overspilling  with  spirits 
that  had  been  long  pent  by  discipline  and  circum 
stance,  of  course  we  would  have  a  drink  or  two. 
And  after  that  we  would  see  the  town. 

It  was  the  old  story.  There  were  so  many 
drinks  to  be  drunk,  and  as  the  warm  magic  poured 
through  our  veins  and  mellowed  our  voices  and  af 
fections  we  knew  it  was  no  time  to  make  invidious 
distinctions — to  drink  with  this  shipmate  and  to 
decline  to  drink  with  that  shipmate.  We  were 
all  shipmates  who  had  been  through  stress  and 
storm  together,  who  had  pulled  and  hauled  on  the 
same  sheets  and  tackles,  relieved  one  another's 
wheels,  lain  out  side  by  side  on  the  same  jib-boom 
when  she  was  plunging  into  it  and  looked  to  see 
who  was  missing  when  she  cleared  and  lifted.  So 
we  drank  with  all,  and  all  treated,  and  our  voices 
rose,  and  we  remembered  a  myriad  kindly  acts  of 
comradeship,  and  forgot  our  fights  and  wordy 
squabbles,  and  knew  one  another  for  the  best  fel 
lows  in  the  world. 

Well,  the  night  was  young  when  we  arrived  in 
that  public  house,  and  for  all  of  that  first  night 

160 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

that  public  house  was  what  I  saw  of  Japan — a 
drinking  place  which  was  very  like  a  drinking 
place  at  home  or  anywhere  else  over  the  world. 

We  lay  in  Yokohama  harbor  for  two  weeks, 
and  about  all  we  saw  of  Japan  was  its  drinking 
places  where  sailors  congregated.  Occasionally, 
some  one  of  us  varied  the  monotony  with  a  more 
exciting  drunk.  In  such  fashion  I  managed  a  real 
exploit  by  swimming  off  to  the  schooner  one  dark 
midnight  and  going  soundly  to  sleep  while  the 
water-police  searched  the  harbor  for  my  body  and 
brought  my  clothes  out  for  identification. 

Perhaps  it  was  for  things  like  that,  I  imagined, 
that  men  got  drunk.  In  our  little  round  of  liv 
ing  what  I  had  done  was  a  noteworthy  event.  All 
the  harbor  talked  about  it.  I  enjoyed  several 
days  of  fame  among  the  Japanese  boatmen  and 
ashore  in  the  pubs.  It  was  a  red  letter  event.  It 
was  an  event  to  be  remembered  and  narrated  with 
pride.  I  remember  it  to-day,  twenty  years  after 
ward,  with  a  secret  glow  of  pride.  It  was  a  purple 
passage,  just  as  Victor's  wrecking  of  the  tea  house 
in  the  Bonin  Islands  and  my  being  looted  by  the 
runaway  apprentices  were  purple  passages. 

The  point  is  that  the  charm  of  John  Barley 
corn  was  still  a  mystery  to  me.  I  was  so  organ- 

161 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

ically  a  non-alcoholic  that  alcohol  itself  made  no 
appeal;  the  chemical  reactions  it  produced  in  me 
were  not  satisfying  because  I  possessed  no  need 
for  such  chemical  satisfaction.  I  drank  because 
the  men  I  was  with  drank,  and  because  my  nature 
was  such  that  I  could  not  permit  myself  to  be  less 
of  a  man  than  other  men  at  their  favorite  pastime. 
And  I  still  had  a  sweet  tooth,  and  on  privy  occa 
sions  when  there  was  no  man  to  see,  bought  candy 
and  blissfully  devoured  it. 

We  hove  up  anchor  to  a  jolly  chanty,  and  sailed 
out  of  Yokohama  harbor  for  San  Francisco.  We 
took  the  northern  passage,  and  with  the  stout  west 
wind  at  our  back  made  the  run  across  the  Pacific 
in  thirty-seven  days  of  brave  sailing.  We  still 
had  a  big  pay-day  coming  to  us,  and  for  thirty- 
seven  days,  without  a  drink  to  addle  our  mental 
processes,  we  incessantly  planned  the  spending  of 
our  money. 

The  first  statement  of  each  man — ever  an  an 
cient  one  in  homeward-bound  forecastles — was: 
"No  boarding-house  sharks  in  mine."  Next,  in 
parentheses,  was  regret  at  having  spent  so  much 
money  in  Yokohama.  And  after  that,  each  man 
preceded  to  paint  his  favorite  phantom.  Victor, 
for  instance,  said  that  immediately  he  landed  in 

162 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

San  Francisco  he  would  pass  right  through  the 
water-front  and  the  Barbary  Coast,  and  put  an 
advertisement  in  the  papers.  His  advertisement 
would  be  for  board  and  room  in  some  simple 
working-class  family.  "Then,"  said  Victor,  "I 
shall  go  to  some  dancing-school  for  a  week  or  two, 
just  to  meet  and  get  acquainted  with  the  girls  and 
fellows.  Then  I  '11  get  the  run  of  the  different 
dancing-crowds,  and  be  invited  to  their  homes, 
and  to  parties,  and  all  that,  and  with  the  money 
I  've  got  I  can  last  out  till  next  January  when 
I  '11  go  sealing  again." 

No ;  he  was  n't  going  to  drink.  He  knew  the 
way  of  it,  particularly  his  way  of  it,  wine  in,  wit 
out,  and  his  money  would  be  gone  in  no  time. 
He  had  his  choice,  based  on  bitter  experience,  be 
tween  three  days'  debauch  among  the  sharks  and 
harpies  of  the  Barbary  Coast  and  a  whole  winter 
of  wholesome  enjoyment  and  sociability,  and 
there  was  n't  any  doubt  of  the  way  he  was  going 
to  choose. 

Said  Axel  Gunderson,  who  did  n't  care  for 
dancing  and  social  functions :  "I  've  got  a  good 
pay-day.  Now  I  can  go  home.  It  is  fifteen 
years  since  I  've  seen  my  mother  and  all  the 
family.  When  I  pay  off  I  shall  send  my  money 

163 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

home  to  wait  for  me.  Then  I  '11  pick  a  good  ship 
bound  for  Europe,  and  arrive  there  with  another 
pay-day.  Put  them  together,  and  I  '11  have  more 
money  than  ever  in  my  life  before.  I  '11  be  a 
prince  at  home.  You  have  n't  any  idea  how 
cheap  everything  is  in  Norway.  I  can  make  pres 
ents  to  everybody,  and  spend  my  money  like  what 
would  seem  to  them  a  millionaire,  and  live  a 
whole  year  there  before  I  'd  have  to  go  back  to 
sea." 

"The  very  thing  I  'm  going  to  do,"  declared 
Red  John.  "It 's  three  years  since  I  've  received 
a  line  from  home  and  ten  years  since  I  was  there. 
Things  are  just  as  cheap  in  Sweden,  Axel,  as  in 
Norway,  and  my  folks  are  real  country  folks  and 
farmers.  I  '11  send  my  pay-day  home  and  ship 
on  the  same  ship  with  you  for  around  the  Horn. 
We  '11  pick  a  good  one." 

And  as  Axel  Gunderson  and  Red  John  painted 
the  pastoral  delights  and  festive  customs  of  their 
respective  countries,  each  fell  in  love  with  the 
other's  home  place,  and  they  solemnly  pledged  to 
make  the  journey  together,  and  to  spend,  together, 
six  months  in  the  one's  Swedish  home  and  six 
months  in  the  other's  Norwegian  home.  And  for 
the  rest  of  the  voyage  they  could  hardly  be  pried 

164 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

apart,  so  infatuated  did  they  become  with  dis 
cussing  their  plans. 

Long  John  was  not  a  home-body.  But  he  was 
tired  of  the  forecastle.  No  boarding-house 
sharks  in  his.  He,  too,  would  get  a  room  in  a 
quiet  family,  and  he  would  go  to  a  navigation 
school  and  study  to  be  a  captain.  And  so  it 
went.  Each  man  swore  that  for  once  he  would 
be  sensible  and  not  squander  his  money.  No 
boarding-house  sharks,  no  sailor-town,  no  drink, 
was  the  slogan  of  our  forecastle. 

The  men  became  stingy.  Never  was  there 
such  economy.  They  refused  to  buy  anything 
more  from  the  slop-chest.  Old  rags  had  to  last, 
and  they  sewed  patch  upon  patch,  turning  out 
what  are  called  "homeward-bound  patches"  of 
the  most  amazing  dimensions.  They  saved  on 
matches,  even,  waiting  till  two  or  three  were  ready 
to  light  their  pipes  from  the  same  match. 

As  we  sailed  up  the  San  Francisco  water-front, 
the  moment  the  port  doctors  passed  us  the  board 
ing-house  runners  were  alongside  in  Whitehall 
boats.  They  swarmed  on  board,  each  drumming 
for  his  own  boarding-house,  and  each  with  a 
bottle  of  free  whisky  inside  his  shirt.  But  we 
waved  them  grandly  and  blasphemously  away. 

165 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

We  wanted  none  of  their  boarding-houses  and 
none  of  their  whisky.  We  were  sober,  thrifty 
sailormen,  with  better  use  for  our  money. 

Came  the  paying  off  before  the  Shipping  Com 
missioner.  We  emerged  upon  the  sidewalk,  each 
with  a  pocketful  of  money.  About  us,  like  buz 
zards,  clustered  the  sharks  and  harpies^  And  we 
looked  at  each  other.  We  had  been  seven  months 
together,  and  our  paths  were  separating.  One 
last  farewell  rite  of  comradeship  remained.  (Oh, 
it  was  the  way,  the  custom).  "Come  on,  boys," 
said  our  sailing-master.  There  stood  the  inevit 
able  adjacent  saloon.  There  were  a  dozen  sa 
loons  all  around.  And  when  we  had  followed  the 
sailing-master  into  the  one  of  his  choice,  the 
sharks  were  thick  on  the  sidewalk  outside.  Some 
of  them  even  ventured  inside,  but  we  would  have 
nothing  to  do  with  them. 

There  we  stood  at  the  long  bar — the  sailing- 
master,  the  mates,  the  six  hunters,  the  six  boat- 
steerers,  and  the  five  boat-pullers.  There  were 
only  five  of  the  last,  for  one  of  our  number  had 
been  dropped  overboard,  with  a  sack  of  coal  at 
his  feet,  between  two  snow  squalls  in  a  driving 
gale  off  Cape  Jerimo.  There  were  nineteen  of 
us,  and  it  was  to  be  our  last  drink  together.  With 

166 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

seven  months  of  men's  work  in  the  world,  blow 
high,  blow  low,  behind  us,  we  were  looking  on 
each  other  for  the  last  time.  We  knew  it,  for 
sailors'  ways  go  wide.  And  the  nineteen  of  us 
drank  the  sailing-master's  treat.  Then  the  mate 
looked  at  us  with  eloquent  eyes  and  called  for  an 
other  round.  We  liked  the  mate  just  as  well  as 
the  sailing-master,  and  we  liked  them  both. 
Could  we  drink  with  one,  and  not  the  other*? 

And  Pete  Holt,  my  own  hunter  (lost  next  year 
in  the  Mary  Thomas  with  all  hands),  called  a 
round.  The  time  passed,  the  drinks  continued 
to  come  on  the  bar,  our  voices  rose,  and  the  mag 
gots  began  to  crawl.  There  were  six  hunters, 
and  each  insisted,  in  the  sacred  name  of  comrade 
ship,  that  all  hands  drink  with  him  just  once. 
There  were  six  boat-steerers  and  five  boat-pullers 
and  the  same  logic  held  with  them.  There  was 
money  in  all  our  pockets,  and  our  money  was  as 
good  as  any  man's,  and  our  hearts  were  as  free 
and  generous. 

Nineteen  rounds  of  drinks.  What  more  would 
John  Barleycorn  ask  in  order  to  have  his  will  with 
men?  They  were  ripe  to  forget  their  dearly 
cherished  plans.  They  rolled  out  of  the  saloon 
and  into  the  arms  of  the  sharks  and  harpies. 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

They  did  n't  last  long.  From  two  days  to  a  week 
saw  the  end  of  their  money  and  saw  them  being 
carted  by  the  boarding-house  master  on  board  out 
ward-bound  ships.  Victor  was  a  fine  body  of  a 
man,  and  through  a  lucky  friendship  managed  to 
get  into  the  life-saving  service.  He  never  saw 
the  dancing-school  nor  placed  his  advertisement 
for  a  room  in  a  working-class  family.  Nor  did 
Long  John  win  to  navigation-school.  By  the  end 
of  the  week  he  was  a  transient  lumper  on  a  river 
steamboat.  Red  John  and  Axel  did  not  send 
their  pay-days  home  to  the  old  country.  Instead, 
and  along  with  the  rest,  they  were  scattered  on 
board  sailing  ships  bound  for  the  four  quarters 
of  the  globe,  where  they  had  been  placed  by  the 
boarding-house  masters  and  where  they  were  work 
ing  out  advance  money  which  they  had  neither 
seen  nor  spent. 

What  saved  me  was  that  I  had  a  home  and 
people  to  go  to.  I  crossed  the  bay  to  Oakland, 
and,  among  other  things,  took  a  look  at  the  death- 
road.  Nelson  was  gone — shot  to  death  while 
drunk  and  resisting  the  officers.  His  partner  in 
that  affair  was  lying  in  prison.  Whisky  Bob  was 
gone.  Old  Cole,  Old  Smoudge  and  Bob  Smith 
were  gone.  Another  Smith,  he  of  the  belted  guns 

168 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

and  the  Annie,  was  drowned.  French  Frank, 
they  said,  was  lurking  up  river,  afraid  to  come 
down  because  of  something  he  had  done.  Others 
were  wearing  stripes  in  San  Quentin  or  Folsom. 
Big  Alec,  the  King  of  the  Greeks,  whom  I  had 
known  well  in  the  old  Benicia  days,  and  with 
whom  I  had  drunk  whole  nights  through,  had 
killed  two  men  and  fled  to  foreign  parts.  Fitz- 
simmons,  with  whom  I  had  sailed  on  the  Fish  Pa 
trol,  had  been  stabbed  in  the  lung  through  the 
back  and  had  died  a  lingering  death  from  tuber 
culosis.  And  so  it  went,  a  very  lively  and  well- 
patronized  road,  and,  from  what  I  knew  of  all  of 
them,  John  Barleycorn  was  responsible,  with  the 
sole  exception  of  Smith  of  the  Annie. 


169 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

MY  infatuation  for  the  Oakland  water-front 
was  quite  dead.  I  did  n't  like  the  looks 
of  it  nor  the  life.  I  did  n't  care  for  the  drinking, 
nor  the  vagrancy  of  it,  and  I  wandered  back  to 
the  Oakland  Free  Library  and  read  the  books  with 
greater  understanding.  Then,  too,  my  mother 
said  I  had  sown  my  wild  oats  and  it  was  time  I 
settled  down  to  a  regular  job.  Also,  the  family 
needed  the  money.  So  I  got  a  job  at  the  jute  mills 
— a  ten-hour  day  at  ten  cents  an  hour.  Despite 
my  increase  in  strength  and  general  efficiency,  I 
was  receiving  no  more  than  when  I  worked  in  the 
cannery  several  years  before.  But,  then,  there 
was  a  promise  of  a  raise  to  a  dollar  and  a  quarter 
a  day  after  a  few  months. 

And  here,  so  far  as  John  Barleycorn  is  con 
cerned,  began  a  period  of  innocence.  I  did  not 
know  what  it  was  to  take  a  drink  from  month  end 
to  month  end.  Not  yet  eighteen  years  old, 
healthy  and  with  labor-hardened  but  unhurt 

170 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

muscles,  like  any  young  animal  I  needed  diver 
sion,  excitement,  something  beyond  the  books  and 
the  mechanical  toil. 

I  strayed  into  Young  Men's  Christian  Associa 
tions.  The  life  there  was  healthful  and  athletic, 
but  too  juvenile.  For  me  it  was  too  late.  I  was 
not  boy,  nor  youth,  despite  my  paucity  of  years. 
I  had  bucked  big  with  men.  I  knew  mysterious 
and  violent  things.  I  was  from  the  other  side  of 
life  so  far  as  concerned  the  young  men  I  en 
countered  in  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.  I  spoke  another 
language,  possessed  a  sadder  and  more  terrible 
wisdom.  (When  I  come  to  think  it  over,  I  real 
ize,  now,  that  I  have  never  had  a  boyhood.)  At 
any  rate,  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.  young  men  were  too 
juvenile  for  me,  too  unsophisticated.  This  I 
would  not  have  minded,  could  they  have  met  me 
and  helped  me  mentally.  But  I  had  got  more 
out  of  the  books  than  they.  Their  meager  physi 
cal  experiences,  plus  their  meager  intellectual  ex 
periences,  made  a  negative  sum  so  vast  that  it 
overbalanced  their  wholesome  morality  and  health 
ful  sports. 

In  short,  I  could  n't  play  with  the  pupils  of  a 
lower  grade.  All  the  clean  splendid  young  life 
that  was  theirs  was  denied  me — thanks  to  my 

171 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

earlier  tutelage  under  John  Barleycorn.  I  knew 
too  much  too  young.  And  yet,  in  the  good  time 
coming,  when  alcohol  is  eliminated  from  the 
needs  and  the  institutions  of  men,  it  will  be  the 
Y.  M.  C.  A.,  and  similar  unthinkably  better  and 
wiser  and  more  virile  congregating  places,  that 
will  receive  the  men  who  now  go  to  saloons  to 
find  themselves  and  one  another.  In  the  mean 
time,  we  live  to-day,  here  and  now,  and  we  dis 
cuss  to-day,  here  and  now. 

I  was  working  ten  hours  a  day  in  the  jute  mills. 
It  was  humdrum  machine-toil.  I  wanted  life. 
I  wanted  to  realize  myself  in  other  ways  than  at 
a  machine  for  ten  cents  an  hour.  And  yet  I  had 
had  my  fill  of  saloons.  I  wanted  something  new. 
I  was  growing  up.  I  was  developing  unguessed 
and  troubling  potencies  and  proclivities.  And  at 
this  very  stage,  fortunately,  I  met  Louis  Shattuck 
and  we  became  chums. 

Louis  Shattuck,  without  one  vicious  trait,  was 
a  real  innocently  devilish  young  fellow  who  was 
quite  convinced  that  he  was  a  sophisticated  town- 
boy.  And  I  was  n't  a  town-boy  at  all.  Louis 
was  handsome,  and  graceful,  and  filled  with  love 
for  the  girls.  With  him  it  was  an  exciting  and 
all-absorbing  pursuit.  I  did  n't  know  anything 

172 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 


about  girls.  I  had  been  too  busy  being  a  man. 
This  was  an  entirely  new  phase  of  existence  which 
had  escaped  me.  And  when  I  saw  Louis  say 
good-by  to  me,  raise  his  hat  to  a  girl  of  his  ac 
quaintance,  and  walk  on  by  her  side  down  the 
sidewalk,  I  was  made  excited  and  envious.  I, 
too,  wanted  to  play  this  game. 

"Well — there 's  only  one  thing  to  do,"  said 
Louis,  "and  that  is,  you  must  get  a  girl." 

Which  is  more  difficult  than  it  sounds.  Let  me 
show  you,  at  the  expense  of  a  slight  going  aside. 
Louis  did  not  know  girls  in  their  home  life.  He 
had  the  entree  to  no  girl's  home.  And  of  course, 
I,  a  stranger  in  this  new  world,  was  similarly  cir 
cumstanced.  But  further,  Louis  and  I  were  un 
able  to  go  to  dancing-schools,  or  to  public  dances, 
which  were  very  good  places  for  getting  ac 
quainted.  We  did  n't  have  the  money.  He  was 
a  blacksmith's  apprentice,  and  was  earning  but 
slightly  more  than  I.  We  both  lived  at  home 
and  paid  our  way.  When  we  had  done  this,  and 
bought  our  cigarettes,  and  the  inevitable  clothes 
and  shoes,  there  remained  to  each  of  us,  for  per 
sonal  spending,  a  sum  that  varied  between  seventy 
cents  and  a  dollar  for  the  week.  We  whacked 
this  up,  shared  it,  and  sometimes  loaned  all  of 

173 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

what  was  left  of  it  when  one  of  us  needed  it  for 
some  more  gorgeous  girl-adventure,  such  as  car 
fare  out  to  Blair's  Park  and  back — twenty  cents, 
bang,  just  like  that;  and  ice-cream  for  two — 
thirty  cents;  or  tamales,  which  came  cheaper  and 
which  for  two  cost  only  twenty  cents. 

I  did  not  mind  this  money  meagerness.  The 
disdain  for  money  I  had  learned  from  the  oyster 
pirates  had  never  left  me.  I  did  n't  care  over- 
weeningly  for  it  for  personal  gratification ;  and  in 
my  philosophy  I  completed  the  circle,  finding  my 
self  as  equable  with  the  lack  of  a  ten-cent  piece 
as  I  was  with  the  squandering  of  scores  of  dollars 
in  calling  all  men  and  hangers-on  up  to  the  bar 
to  drink  with  me. 

But  how  to  get  a  girl?  There  was  no  girl's 
home  to  which  Louis  could  take  me  and  where  I 
might  be  introduced  to  girls.  I  knew  none.  And 
Louis'  several  girls  he  wanted  for  himself;  and 
anyway,  in  the  very  human  nature  of  boys' 
and  girls'  ways,  he  could  n't  turn  any  of  them  over 
to  me.  He  did  persuade  them  to  bring  girl 
friends  for  me;  but  I  found  them  weak  sisters, 
pale  and  ineffectual  alongside  the  choice  speci 
mens  he  had. 

"You  '11  have  to  do  like  I  did,"  he  said  finally. 
174 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

"I  got  these  by  getting  them.  You'll  have  to 
get  one  the  same  way." 

And  he  initiated  me.  It  must  be  remembered 
that  Louis  and  I  were  hard  situated.  We  really 
had  to  struggle  to  pay  our  board  and  maintain  a 
decent  appearance.  We  met  each  other  in  the 
evening,  after  the  day's  work,  on  the  street  cor 
ner,  or  in  a  little  candy  store  on  a  side  street,  our 
sole  frequenting  place.  Here  we  bought  our 
cigarettes,  and,  occasionally,  a  nickel's  worth  of 
"red-hots."  (Oh,  yes;  Louis  and  I  unblushingly 
ate  candy — all  we  could  get.  Neither  of  us 
drank.  Neither  of  us  ever  went  into  a  saloon.) 

But  the  girl.  In  quite  primitive  fashion,  as 
Louis  advised  me,  I  was  to  select  her  and  make 
myself  acquainted  with  her.  We  strolled  the 
streets  in  the  early  evenings.  The  girls,  like  us, 
strolled  in  pairs.  And  strolling  girls  will  look  at 
strolling  boys  who  look.  (And  to  this  day,  in  any 
town,  city,  or  village,  in  which  I,  in  my  middle 
age,  find  myself,  I  look  on  with  the  eye  trained  of 
old  experience,  and  watch  the  sweet  game  played 
by  the  strolling  boys  and  girls  who  just  must 
stroll  when  the  spring  and  summer  evenings  call.) 

The  trouble  was  that  in  this  Arcadian  phase  of 
my  history,  I,  who  had  come  through,  case-hard- 

175 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

ened,  from  the  other  side  of  life,  was  timid  and 
bashful.  Again  and  again  Louis  nerved  me  up. 
But  I  did  n't  know  girls.  They  were  strange  and 
wonderful  to  me  after  my  precocious  man's  life. 
I  failed  of  the  bold  front  and  the  necessary  for 
wardness  when  the  crucial  moment  came. 

Then  Louis  would  show  me  how — a  certain, 
eloquent  glance  of  eye,  a  smile,  a  daring,  lifted 
hat,  a  spoken  word,  hesitancies,  giggles,  coy  nerv 
ousness,  and,  behold,  Louis  acquainted  and  nod 
ding  me  up  to  be  introduced.  But,  when  we 
paired  off  to  stroll  along  boy  and  girl  together,  I 
noted  that  Louis  had  invariably  picked  the  good- 
looker  and  left  to  me  the  little  lame  sister. 

I  improved,  of  course,  after  experiences  too 
numerous  to  enter  upon,  so  that  there  were  divers 
girls  to  whom  I  could  lift  my  hat  and  who  would 
walk  beside  me  in  the  early  evenings.  But  girl's 
love  did  not  immediately  come  to  me.  I  was  ex 
cited,  interested,  and  I  pursued  the  quest.  And 
the  thought  of  drink  never  entered  my  mind. 
Some  of  Louis'  and  my  adventures  have  since 
given  me  serious  pause  when  casting  sociological 
generalizations.  But  it  was  all  good  and  inno 
cently  youthful,  and  I  learned  one  generalization, 
biological  rather  than  sociological,  namely,  that 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

the  "Colonel's  lady  and  Judy  O'Grady  are  sisters 
under  their  skins." 

And  before  long  I  learned  girl's  love,  all  the 
dear  fond  deliciousness  of  it,  all  the  glory  and 
the  wonder.  I  shall  call  her  Haydee.  She  was 
between  fifteen  and  sixteen.  Her  little  skirt 
reached  her  shoe-tops.  We  sat  side  by  side  in  a 
Salvation  Army  meeting.  She  was  not  a  convert, 
nor  was  her  aunt,  who  sat  on  the  other  side  of  her 
and  who,  visiting  from  the  country,  where  at  that 
time  the  Salvation  Army  was  not,  had  dropped  in 
to  the  meeting  for  half  an  hour  out  of  curiosity. 
And  Louis  sat  beside  me  and  observed — I  do  be 
lieve  he  did  no  more  than  observe,  because  Haydee 
was  not  his  style  of  girl. 

We  did  not  speak,  but  in  that  great  half-hour 
we  glanced  shyly  at  each  other,  and  shyly  avoided 
or  as  shyly  returned  and  met  each  other's  glances 
more  than  several  times.  She  had  a  slender  oval 
face.  Her  brown  eyes  were  beautiful.  Her 
nose  was  a  dream,  as  was  her  sweet-lipped,  petu 
lant-hinting  mouth.  She  wore  a  tarn  o'shanter, 
and  I  thought  her  brown  hair  the  prettiest  shade 
of  brown  I  had  ever  seen.  And  from  that  single 
experience  of  half  an  hour  I  have  ever  since  been 
convinced  of  the  reality  of  love  at  first  sight. 

177 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

All  too  soon  the  aunt  and  Haydee  departed. 
(This  is  permissible  at  any  stage  of  a  Salvation 
Army  meeting.)  I  was  no  longer  interested  in 
the  meeting,  and  after  an  appropriate  interval  of 
a  couple  of  minutes  or  less,  started  to  leave  with 
Louis.  As  we  passed  out,  at  the  back  of  the  hall 
a  woman  recognized  me  with  her  eyes,  arose,  and 
followed  me.  I  shall  not  describe  her.  She  was 
of  my  own  kind  and  friendship  of  the  old  time  on 
the  water-front.  When  Nelson  was  shot,  he  had 
died  in  her  arms,  and  she  knew  me  as  his  one 
comrade.  And  she  must  tell  me  how  Nelson  had 
died,  and  I  did  want  to  know ;  so  I  went  with  her 
across  the  width  of  life  from  dawning  boy's  love 
for  a  brown-haired  girl  in  a  tarn  o'shanter  back  to 
the  old  sad  savagery  I  had  known. 

And  when  I  had  heard  the  tale,  I  hurried  away 
to  find  Louis,  fearing  that  I  had  lost  my  first  love 
with  the  first  glimpse  of  her.  But  Louis  was  de 
pendable.  Her  name  was — Haydee.  He  knew 
where  she  lived.  Each  day  she  passed  the  black 
smith-shop  where  he  worked,  going  to  or  from  the 
Lafayette  school.  Further,  he  had  seen  her  on 
occasion  with  Ruth,  another  schoolgirl;  and,  still 
further,  Nita,  who  sold  us  red-hots  at  the  candy 
store,  was  a  friend  of  Ruth.  The  thing  to  do  was 

178 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

to  go  around  to  the  candy  store  and  see  if  we  could 
get  Nita  to  give  a  note  to  Ruth  to  give  to  Haydee. 
If  that  could  be  arranged,  all  I  had  to  do  was 
write  the  note. 

And  it  so  happened.  And  in  stolen  half-hours 
of  meeting  I  came  to  know  all  the  sweet  madness 
of  boy's  love  and  girl's  love.  So  far  as  it  goes 
it  is  not  the  biggest  love  in  the  world,  but  I  do 
dare  to  assert  that  it  is  the  sweetest.  Oh,  as  I 
look  back  on  it !  Never  did  girl  have  more  inno 
cent  boy-lover  than  I  who  had  been  so  wicked- 
wise  and  violent  beyond  my  years.  I  did  n't 
know  the  first  thing  about  girls.  I,  who  had  been 
hailed  Prince  of  the  Oyster  Pirates,  who  could  go 
anywhere  in  the  world  as  a  man  amongst  men; 
who  could  sail  boats,  lay  aloft  in  black  and  storm, 
or  go  into  the  toughest  hang-outs  in  sailor  town 
and  play  my  part  in  any  rough-house  that  started 
or  call  all  hands  to  the  bar — I  did  n't  know  the 
first  thing  I  might  say  or  do  with  this  slender  little 
chit  of  a  girl-woman  whose  scant  skirt  just  reached 
her  shoe-tops  and  who  was  as  abysmally  ignorant 
of  life,  as  I  was,  or  thought  I  was,  profoundly 
wise. 

I  remember  we  sat  on  a  bench  in  the  starlight. 
There  was  fully  a  foot  of  space  between  us.  We 

179 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

slightly  faced  each  other,  our  near  elbows  on  the 
back  of  the  bench;  and  once  or  twice  our  elbows 
just  touched.  And  all  the  time,  deliriously 
happy,  talking  in  the  gentlest  and  most  delicate 
terms  that  might  not  offend  her  sensitive  ears,  I 
was  cudgeling  my  brains  in  an  effort  to  divine 
what  I  was  expected  to  do.  What  did  girls  ex 
pect  of  boys,  sitting  on  a  bench  and  tentatively 
striving  to  find  out  what  love  was*?  What  did 
she  expect  me  to  do?  Was  I  expected  to  kiss 
her?  Did  she  expect  me  to  try?  And  if  she  did 
expect  me,  and  I  did  n't,  what  would  she  think  of 
me?  , 

Ah,  she  was  wiser  than  I — I  know  it  now — the 
little  innocent  girl-woman  in  her  shoe-top  skirt. 
She  had  known  boys  all  her  life.  She  encouraged 
me  in  the  ways  a  girl  may.  Her  gloves  were  off 
and  in  one  hand,  and  I  remember,  lightly  and 
daringly,  in  mock  reproof  for  something  I  had 
said,  how  she  tapped  my  lips  with  a  tiny  flirt  of 
those  gloves.  I  was  like  to  swoon  with  delight. 
It  was  the  most  wonderful  thing  that  had  ever 
happened  to  me.  And  I  remember  yet  the  faint 
scent  that  clung  to  those  gloves  and  that  I  breathed 
in  the  moment  they  touched  my  lips. 

Then  came  the  agony  of  apprehension  and 
180 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

doubt.  Should  I  imprison  in  my  hand  that  little 
hand  with  the  dangling,  scented  gloves  which  had 
just  tapped  my  lips'?  Should  I  dare  to  kiss  her 
there  and  then,  or  slip  my  arm  around  her  waist1? 
Or  dared  I  even  sit  closer? 

Well,  I  didn't  dare.  I  did  nothing.  I 
merely  continued  to  sit  there  and  love  with  all  my 
soul.  And  when  we  parted  that  evening  I  had 
not  kissed  her.  I  do  remember  the  first  time  I 
kissed  her,  on  another  evening,  at  parting — a 
mighty  moment,  when  I  took  all  my  heart  of 
courage  and  dared.  We  never  succeeded  in  man 
aging  more  than  a  dozen  stolen  meetings,  and  we 
kissed  perhaps  a  dozen  times — as  boys  and  girls 
kiss,  briefly  and  innocently,  and  wonderingly. 
We  never  went  anywhere — not  even  to  a  matinee. 
We  once  shared  together  five  cents'  worth  of  red- 
hots.  But  I  have  always  fondly  believed  that 
she  loved  me.  I  know  I  loved  her;  and  I  dreamed 
day  dreams  of  her  for  a  year  and  more,  and  the 
memory  of  her  is  very  dear. 


181 


CHAPTER  XIX 

WHEN  I  was  with  folk  who  did  not  drink, 
I  never  thought  of  drinking.  Louis  did 
not  drink.  Neither  he  nor  I  could  afford  it;  but, 
more  significant  than  that,  we  had  no  desire  to 
drink.  We  were  healthy,  normal,  non-alcoholic. 
Had  we  been  alcoholic,  we  would  have  drunk 
whether  or  not  we  could  have  afforded  it. 

Each  night,  after  the  day's  work,  washed  up, 
clothes  changed  and  supper  eaten,  we  met  on  the 
street  corner  or  in  the  little  candy  store.  But 
the  warm,  fall  weather  passed,  and  on  bitter 
nights  of  frost  or  damp  nights  of  drizzle  the 
street  corner  was  not  a  comfortable  meeting  place. 
And  the  candy  store  was  unheated.  Nita,  or  who 
ever  waited  on  the  counter,  between  waitings 
lurked  in  a  back  living-room  that  was  heated. 
We  were  not  admitted  to  this  room,  and  in  the 
store  it  was  as  cold  as  out-of-doors. 

Louis  and  I  debated  the  situation.  There  was 
only  one  solution:  the  saloon,  the  congregating 

182 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

place  of  men,  the  place  where  men  hobnobbed 
with  John  Barleycorn.  Well  do  I  remember  the 
damp  and  draughty  evening,  shivering  without 
overcoats  because  we  could  not  afford  them,  that 
Louis  and  I  started  out  to  select  our  saloon.  Sa 
loons  are  always  warm  and  comfortable.  Now 
Louis  and  I  did  not  go  into  this  saloon  because 
we  wanted  a  drink.  Yet  we  knew  that  saloons 
were  not  charitable  institutions.  A  man  could 
not  make  a  lounging  place  of  a  saloon  without 
occasionally  buying  something  over  the  bar. 

Our  dimes  and  nickels  were  few.  We  could  ill 
spare  any  of  them  when  they  were  so  potent  in 
buying  carfare  for  oneself  and  a  girl.  (We  never 
paid  carfare  when  by  ourselves,  being  content  to 
walk.)  So,  in  this  saloon,  we  desired  to  make  the 
most  of  our  expenditure.  We  called  for  a  deck 
of  cards  and  sat  down  at  a  table  and  played  euchre 
for  an  hour,  in  which  time  Louis  treated  once, 
and  I  treated  once,  to  beer — the  cheapest  drink, 
ten  cents  for  two.  Prodigal !  How  we  grudged 
it! 

We  studied  the  men  who  came  into  the  place. 
They  seemed  all  middle-aged  and  elderly  work 
men,  most  of  them  Germans,  who  flocked  by 
themselves  in  old-acquaintance  groups,  and  with 

183 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

whom  we  could  have  only  the  slightest  contacts. 
We  voted  against  that  saloon,  and  went  out  cast- 
down  with  the  knowledge  that  we  had  lost  an 
evening  and  wasted  twenty  cents  for  beer  that  we 
did  n't  want. 

We  made  several  more  tries  on  succeeding 
nights,  and  at  last  found  our  way  into  the  Na 
tional,  a  saloon  on  Tenth  and  Franklin.  Here 
was  a  more  congenial  crowd.  Here  Louis  met  a 
fellow  or  two  he  knew,  and  here  I  met  fellows  I 
had  gone  to  school  with  when  a  little  lad  in  knee 
pants.  We  talked  of  old  days,  and  of  what  had 
become  of  this  fellow,  and  what  that  fellow  was 
doing  now,  and  of  course  we  talked  it  over  drinks. 
They  treated,  and  we  drank.  Then,  according 
to  the  code  of  drinking,  we  had  to  treat.  It  hurt, 
for  it  meant  forty  to  fifty  cents  a  clatter. 

We  felt  quite  enlivened  when  the  short  evening 
was  over ;  but  at  the  same  time  we  were  bankrupt. 
Our  week's  spending-money  was  gone.  We  de 
cided  that  that  was  the  saloon  for  us,  and  we 
agreed  to  be  more  circumspect  thereafter  in  our 
drink-buying.  Also,  we  had  to  economize  for  the 
rest  of  the  week.  We  did  n't  even  have  carfare. 
We  were  compelled  to  break  an  engagement  with 
two  girls  from  West  Oakland  with  whom  we 

184 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

were  attempting  to  be  in  love.  They  were  to 
meet  us  up  town  the  next  evening,  and  we  had  n't 
the  carfare  necessary  to  take  them  home.  Like 
many  others  financially  embarrassed,  we  had  to 
disappear  for  a  time  from  the  gay  whirl — at  least 
until  Saturday  night  pay-day.  So  Louis  and  I 
rendezvoused  in  a  livery  stable,  and  with  coats 
buttoned  and  chattering  teeth  played  euchre  and 
casino  until  the.  time  of  our  exile  was  over. 

Then  we  returned  to  the  National  Saloon  and 
spent  no  more  than  we  could  decently  avoid 
spending  for  the  comfort  and  warmth.  Some 
times  we  had  mishaps,  as  when  one  got  stuck  twice 
in  succession  in  a  five-handed  game  of  Sancho 
Pedro  for  the  drinks.  Such  a  disaster  meant  any 
where  between  twenty-five  to  eighty  cents,  just 
according  to  how  many  of  the  players  ordered 
ten-cent  drinks.  But  we  could  temporarily  es 
cape  the  evil  effects  of  such  disaster  by  virtue  of 
an  account  we  ran  behind  the  bar.  Of  course, 
this  only  set  back  the  day  of  reckoning  and  se 
duced  us  into  spending  more  than  we  would  have 
spent  on  a  cash  basis.  (When  I  left  Oakland 
suddenly  for  the  adventure-path  the  following 
spring,  I  well  remember  I  owed  that  saloon  keeper 
one  dollar  and  seventy  cents.  Long  after,  when 

185 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

I  returned,  he  was  gone.  I  still  owe  him  that 
dollar  and  seventy  cents,  and  if  he  should  chance 
to  read  these  lines  I  want  him  to  know  that  I  '11 
pay  on  demand.) 

The  foregoing  incident  of  the  National  Saloon 
I  have  given  in  order  again  to  show  the  lure,  or 
draw,  or  compulsion,  toward  John  Barleycorn  in 
society  as  at  present  organized  with  saloons  on  all 
the  corners.  Louis  and  I  were  two  healthy 
youths.  We  did  n't  want  to  drink.  We  could  n't 
afford  to  drink.  And  yet  we  were  driven  by  the 
circumstances  of  cold  and  rainy  weather  to  seek 
refuge  in  a  saloon,  where  we  had  to  spend  part  of 
our  pitiful  dole  for  drink.  It  will  be  urged  by 
some  critics  that  we  might  have  gone  to  the  Y. 
M.  C.  A.,  to  night  school,  and  to  the  social  circles 
and  homes  of  young  people.  The  only  reply  is 
that  we  did  n't.  That  is  the  irrefragable  fact. 
We  did  n't.  And  to-day,  at  this  moment,  there 
are  hundreds  of  thousands  of  boys  like  Louis  and 
me  doing  just  what  Louis  and  I  did,  with  John 
Barleycorn,  warm  and  comfortable,  beckoning 
and  welcoming,  tucking  their  arms  in  his  and  be 
ginning  to  teach  them  his  mellow  ways. 


186 


CHAPTER  XX 

THE  jute  mills  failed  of  its  agreement  to  in 
crease  my  pay  to  a  dollar  and  a  quarter  a 
day,  and  I,  a  free-born  American  boy  whose  direct 
ancestors  had  fought  in  all  the  wars  from  the 
old  pre-Revolutionary  Indian  wars  down,  exer 
cised  my  sovereign  right  of  free  contract  by  quit 
ting  the  job. 

I  was  still  resolved  to  settle  down,  and  I  looked 
about  me.  One  thing  was  clear.  Unskilled 
labor  did  n't  pay.  I  must  learn  a  trade,  and  I 
decided  on  electricity.  The  need  for  electricians 
was  constantly  growing.  But  how  to  become  an 
electrician?  I  had  n't  the  money  to  go  to  a  tech 
nical  school  or  university;  besides,  I  did  n't  think 
much  of  schools.  I  was  a  practical  man  in  a  prac 
tical  world.  Also,  I  still  believed  in  the  old 
myths  which  were  the  heritage  of  the  American 
boy  when  I  was  a  boy. 

A  canal  boy  could  become  a  president.  Any 
boy,  who  took  employment  with  any  firm,  could, 

187 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

by  thrift,  energy,  and  sobriety,  learn  the  business 
and  rise  from  position  to  position  until  he  was 
taken  in  as  a  junior  partner.  After  that  the  sen 
ior  partnership  was  only  a  matter  of  time.  Very 
often — so  ran  the  myth — the  boy,  by  reason  of 
his  steadiness  and  application,  married  his  em 
ployer's  daughter.  By  this  time  I  had  been  en 
couraged  to  such  faith  in  myself  in  the  matter  of 
girls  that  I  was  quite  certain  I  would  marry  my 
employer's  daughter.  There  was  n't  a  doubt  of 
it.  All  the  little  boys  in  the  myths  did  it  as  soon 
as  they  were  old  enough. 

So  I  bade  farewell  forever  to  the  adventure- 
path,  and  went  out  to  the  power-plant  of  one  of  our 
Oakland  street-railways.  I  saw  the  superintend 
ent  himself,  in  a  private  office  so  fine  that  it  almost 
stunned  me.  But  I  talked  straight  up.  I  told 
him  I  wanted  to  become  a  practical  electrician, 
that  I  was  unafraid  of  work,  that  I  was  used  to 
hard  work,  and  that  all  he  had  to  do  was  look  at 
me  to  see  I  was  fit  and  strong.  I  told  him  that  I 
wanted  to  begin  right  at  the  bottom  and  work  up, 
that  I  wanted  to  devote  my  life  to  this  one  occu 
pation  and  this  one  employment. 

The  superintendent  beamed  as  he  listened.  He 
told  me  that  I  was  the  right  stuff  for  success,  and 

188 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

that  he  believed  in  encouraging  American  youth 
that  wanted  to  rise.  Why,  employers  were  al 
ways  on  the  lookout  for  young  fellows  like  me, 
and  alas,  they  found  them  all  too  rarely.  My 
ambition  was  fine  and  worthy,  and  he  would  see 
to  it  that  I  got  my  chance.  (And  as  I  listened 
with  swelling  heart,  I  wondered  if  it  was  his 
daughter  I  was  to  marry.) 

"Before  you  can  go  out  on  the  road  and  learn 
the  more  complicated  and  higher  details  of  the 
profession,"  he  said,  "you  will,  of  course,  have  to 
work  in  the  car  house  with  the  men  who  install 
and  repair  the  motors.  (By  this  time  I  was  sure 
that  it  was  his  daughter,  and  I  was  wondering 
how  much  stock  he  might  own  in  the  company.) 

"But,"  he  said,  "as  you  yourself  so  plainly 
see,  you  could  n't  expect  to  begin  as  a  helper  to 
the  car  house  electricians.  That  will  come  when 
you  have  worked  up  to  it.  You  will  really  begin 
at  the  bottom.  In  the  car  house  your  first  em 
ployment  will  be  sweeping  up,  washing  the  win 
dows,  keeping  things  clean.  And  after  you  have 
shown  yourself  satisfactory  at  that,  then  you  may 
become  a  helper  to  the  car  house  electricians." 

I  did  n't  see  how  sweeping  and  scrubbing  a 
building  was  any  preparation  for  the  trade  of 

189 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

electrician;  but  I  did  know  that  in  the  books  all 
the  boys  started  with  the  most  menial  tasks  and 
by  making  good  ultimately  won  to  the  ownership 
of  the  whole  concern. 

"When  shall  I  come  to  work  2"  I  asked,  eager 
to  launch  on  this  dazzling  career. 

"But,"  said  the  superintendent,  "as  you  and  I 
have  already  agreed,  you.- must  begin  at  the  bot 
tom.  Not  immediately  can  you  in  any  capacity 
enter  the  car  house.  Before  that  you  must  pass 
through  the  engine  room  as  an  oiler." 

My  heart  went  down  slightly  and  for  the  mo 
ment,  as  I  saw  the  road  lengthen  between  his 
daughter  and  me ;  then  it  rose  again.  I  would  be 
a*  better  electrician  with  knowledge  of  steam  en 
gines.  As  an  oiler  in  the  great  engine  room  I  was 
confident  that  few  things  concerning  steam  would 
escape  me.  Heavens!  My  career  shone  more 
dazzling  than  ever. 

"When  shall  I  come  to  work4?"  I  asked  grate 
fully. 

"But,"  said  the  superintendent,  "you  could  not 
expect  to  enter  immediately  into  the  engine  room. 
There  must  be  preparation  for  that.  And  through 
the  fire  room,  of  course.  Come,  you  see  the  mat 
ter  clearly,  I  know.  And  you  will  see  that  even 

190 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

the  mere  handling  of  coal  is  a  scientific  matter 
and  not  to  be  sneezed  at.  Do  you  know  that  we 
weigh  every  pound  of  coal  we  burn*?  Thus,  we 
learn  the  value  of  the  coal  we  buy ;  we  know  to  a 
tee  the  last  penny  of  cost  of  every  item  of  produc 
tion,  and  we  learn  which  firemen  are  the  most 
wasteful,  which  firemen,  out  of  stupidity  or  care 
lessness,  get  the  least  out  of  the  coal  they  fire." 
The  superintendent  beamed  again.  "You  see 
how  very  important  the  little  matter  of  coal  is, 
and  by  as  much  as  you  learn  of  this  little  matter 
you  will  become  that  much  better  a  workman — 
more  valuable  to  us,  more  valuable  to  yourself. 
Now,  are  you  prepared  to  begin4?" 

"Any  time,"  I  said  valiantly.  "The  sooner  the 
better." 

"Very  well,"  he  answered.  "You  will  come 
to-morrow  morning  at  seven  o'clock." 

I  was  taken  out  and  shown  my  duties.  Also,  I 
was  told  the  terms  of  my  employment — a  ten-hour 
day,  every  day  in  the  month  including  Sundays 
and  holidays,  with  one  day  off  each  month,  with 
a  salary  of  thirty  dollars  a  month.  It  was  n't  ex 
citing.  Years  before,  at  the  cannery,  I  had 
earned  a  dollar  a  day  for  a  ten-hour  day.  I  con 
soled  myself  with  the  thought  that  the  reason  my 

191 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

earning  capacity  had  not  increased  with  my  years 
and  strength  was  because  I  had  remained  an  un 
skilled  laborer.  But  it  was  different  now.  I 
was  beginning  to  work  for  skill,  for  a  trade,  for 
career  and  fortune  and  the  superintendent's 
daughter. 

And  I  was  beginning  in  the  right  way — right 
at  the  beginning.  That  was  the  thing.  I  was 
passing  coal  to  the  firemen,  who  shoveled  it  into 
the  furnaces  where  its  energy  was  transformed  into 
steam,  which,  in  the  engine  room,  was  transformed 
into  the  electricity  with  which  the  electricians 
worked.  This  passing  of  coal  was  surely  the  very 
beginning  .  .  .  unless  the  superintendent  should 
take  it  into  his  head  to  send  me  to  work  in  the 
mines  from  which  the  coal  came  in  order  to  get  a 
completer  understanding  of  the  genesis  of  elec 
tricity  for  street  railways. 

Work!  I,  who  had  worked  with  men,  found 
that  I  did  n't  know  the  first  thing  about  real  work. 
A  ten-hour  day!  I  had  to  pass  coal  for  the  day 
and  night  shifts,  and,  despite  working  through  the 
noon-hour,  I  never  finished  my  task  before  eight 
at  night.  I  was  working  a  twelve-  to  thirteen- 
hour  day,  and  I  was  n't  being  paid  overtime  as  in 
the  cannery. 

192 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

I  might  as  well  give  the  secret  away  right  here. 
I  was  doing  the  work  of  two  men.  Before  me, 
one  mature  able-bodied  laborer  had  done  the  day 
shift  and  another  equally  mature  able-bodied  la 
borer  had  done  the  night  shift.  They  had  re 
ceived  forty  dollars  a  month  each.  The  superin 
tendent,  bent  on  an  economical  administration, 
had  persuaded  me  to  do  the  work  of  both  men 
for  thirty  dollars  a  month.  I  thought  he  was 
making  an  electrician  of  me.  In  truth  and  fact, 
he  was  saving  fifty  dollars  a  month  operating  ex 
penses  to  the  company. 

But  I  did  n't  know  I  was  displacing  two  men. 
Nobody  told  me.  On  the  contrary,  the  super 
intendent  warned  everybody  not  to  tell  me.  How 
valiantly  I  went  at  it  that  first  day.  I  worked  at 
top  speed,  filling  the  iron  wheelbarrow  with  coal, 
running  it  on  the  scales  and  weighing  the  load, 
then  trundling  it  into  the  fire  room  and  dumping 
it  on  the  plates  before  the  fires. 

Work!  I  did  more  than  the  two  men  whom 
I  had  displaced.  They  had  merely  wheeled  in 
the  coal  and  dumped  it  on  the  plates.  But  while 
I  did  this  for  the  day  coal,  the  night  coal  I  had  to 
pile  against  the  wall  of  the  fire  room.  Now  the 
fire  room  was  small.  It  had  been  planned  for  a 

193 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

night  coal-passer.  So  I  had  to  pile  the  night  coal 
higher  and  higher,  buttressing  up  the  heap  with 
stout  planks.  Toward  the  top  of  the  heap  I  had 
to  handle  the  coal  a  second  time,  tossing  it  up 
with  a  shovel. 

I  dripped  with  sweat,  but  I  never  ceased  from 
my  stride,  though  I  could  feel  exhaustion  coming 
on.  By  ten  o'clock  in  the  morning,  so  much  of 
my  body's  energy  had  I  consumed,  I  felt  hungry 
and  snatched  a  thick  double-slice  of  bread  and 
butter  from  my  dinner  pail.  This  I  devoured, 
standing,  grimed  with  coal  dust,  my  knees  trem 
bling  under  me.  By  eleven  o'clock,  in  this  fashion, 
I  had  consumed  my  whole  lunch.  But  what  of 
it?  I  realized  that  it  would  enable  me  to  con 
tinue  working  through  the  noon  hour.  And  I 
worked  all  afternoon.  Darkness  came  on,  and  I 
worked  under  the  electric  lights.  The  day  fire 
man  went  off  and  the  night  fireman  came  on.  I 
plugged  away. 

At  half-past  eight,  famished,  tottering,  I  washed 
up,  changed  my  clothes,  and  dragged  my  weary 
body  to  the  car.  It  was  three  miles  to  where  I 
lived,  and  I  had  received  a  pass  with  the  stipula 
tion  that  I  could  sit  down  as  long  as  there  were 
no  paying  passengers  in  need  of  a  seat.  As  I 

194 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

sank  into  a  corner  outside  seat  I  prayed  that  no 
passenger  might  require  my  seat.  But  the  car 
filled  up,  and,  half  way  in,  a  woman  came  on 
board,  and  there  was  no  seat  for  her.  I  started  to 
get  up,  and  to  my  astonishment  found  that  I  could 
not.  With  the  chill  wind  blowing  on  me,  my 
spent  body  had  stiffened  into  the  seat.  It  took 
me  the  rest  of  the  run  in  to  unkink  my  complain 
ing  joints  and  muscles  and  get  into  a  standing  po 
sition  on  the  lower  step.  And  when  the  car 
stopped  at  my  corner  I  nearly  fell  to  the  ground 
when  I  stepped  off. 

I  hobbled  two  blocks  to  the  house  and  limped 
into  the  kitchen.  While  my  mother  started  to 
cook  I  plunged  into  bread  and  butter;  but  before 
my  appetite  was  appeased,  or  the  steak  fried,  I 
was  sound  asleep.  In  vain  my  mother  strove  to 
shake  me  awake  enough  to  eat  the  meat.  Failing 
in  this,  with  the  assistance  of  my  father  she  man 
aged  to  get  me  to  my  room,  where  I  collapsed  dead 
asleep  on  the  bed.  They  undressed  me  and  cov 
ered  me  up.  In  the  morning  came  the  agony  of 
being  awakened.  I  was  terribly  sore,  and  worst 
of  all  my  wrists  were  swelling.  But  I  made  up 
for  my  lost  supper,  eating  an  enormous  break 
fast,  and  when  I  hobbled  to  catch  my  car  I  car- 

195 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

ried  a  lunch  twice  as  big  as  the  one  the  day  be 
fore. 

Work!  Let  any  youth  just  turned  eighteen 
try  to  out-shovel  two  man-grown  coal-shovelers. 
Work !  Long  before  midday  I  had  eaten  the  last 
scrap  of  my  huge  lunch.  But  I  was  resolved  to 
show  them  what  a  husky  young  fellow  determined 
to  rise  could  do.  The  worst  of  it  was  that  my 
wrists  were  swelling  and  going  back  on  me. 
There  are  few  who  do  not  know  the  pain  of  walk 
ing  on  a  sprained  ankle.  Then  imagine  the  pain 
of  shoveling  coal  and  trundling  a  loaded  wheel 
barrow  with  two  sprained  wrists. 

Work!  More  than  once  I  sank  down  on  the 
coal  where  no  one  could  see  me,  and  cried  with 
rage,  and  mortification,  and  exhaustion,  and 
despair.  That  second  day  was  my  hardest,  and 
all  that  enabled  me  to  survive  it  and  get  in  the 
last  of  the  night  coal  at  the  end  of  thirteen  hours 
was  the  day  fireman,  who  bound  both  my  wrists 
with  broad  leather  straps.  So  tightly  were  they 
buckled  that  they  were  like  slightly  flexible  plaster 
casts.  They  took  the  stresses  and  pressures  which 
thitherto  had  been  borne  by  my  wrists,  and  they 
were  so  tight  that  there  was  no  room  for  the  in 
flammation  to  rise  in  the  sprains. 

196 


Work!     Let  any  youth  just  turned  eighteen  try  to  out-shovel  two  man- 
grown    coal-shovelers ! 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

And  in  this  fashion  I  continued  to  learn  to  be 
an  electrician.  Night  after  night  I  limped  home, 
fell  asleep  before  I  could  eat  my  supper,  and  was 
helped  into  bed  and  undressed.  Morning  after 
morning,  always  with  huger  lunches  in  my  dinner 
pail,  I  limped  out  of  the  hpuse  on  my  way  to 
work. 

I  no  longer  read  my  library  books.  I  made  no 
dates  with  the  girls.  I  was  a  proper  work-beast. 
I  worked,  and  ate,  and  slept,  while  my  mind  slept 
all  the  time.  The  whole  thing  was  a  nightmare. 
I  worked  every  day,  including  Sunday,  and  I 
looked  far  ahead  to  my  one  day  off  at  the  end  of 
a  month,  resolved  to  lie  abed  all  that  day  and  just 
sleep  and  rest  up. 

The  strangest  part  of  this  experience  was  that 
I  never  took  a  drink  nor  thought  of  taking  a  drink. 
Yet  I  knew  that  men  under  hard  pressure  almost 
invariably  drank.  I  had  seen  them  do  it,  and 
in  the  past  had  often  done  it  myself.  But  so 
sheerly  non-alcoholic  was  I  that  it  never  entered 
my  mind  that  a  drink  might  be  good  for  me.  I 
instance  this  to  show  how  entirely  lacking  from 
my  make-up  was  any  predisposition  toward  alco 
hol.  And  the  point  of  this  instance  is  that  later 
on,  after  more  years  had  passed,  contact  with 

199 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

John  Barleycorn  at  last  did  induce  in  me  the  al 
coholic  desire. 

I  had  often  noticed  the  day  fireman  staring  at 
me  in  a  curious  way.  At  last,  one  day,  he  spoke. 
He  began  by  swearing  me  to  secrecy.  He  had 
been  warned  by  the  superintendent  not  to  tell  me, 
and  in  telling  me  he  was  risking  his  job.  He  told 
me  of  the  day  coal-passer  and  the  night  coal- 
passer,  and  of  the  wages  they  had  received.  I 
was  doing  for  thirty  dollars  a  month  what  they 
had  received  eighty  dollars  for  doing.  He  would 
have  told  me  sooner,  the  fireman  said,  had  he  not 
been  so  certain  that  I  would  break  down  under 
the  work  and  quit.  As  it  was,  I  was  killing  my 
self,  and  all  to  no  good  purpose.  I  was  merely 
cheapening  the  price  of  labor,  he  argued,  and 
keeping  two  men  out  of  a  job. 

Being  an  American  boy,  and  a  proud  American 
boy,  I  did  not  immediately  quit.  This  was  foolish 
of  me,  I  know;  but  I  resolved  to  continue  the 
work  long  enough  to  prove  to  the  superintendent 
that  I  could  do  it  without  breaking  down.  Then 
I  would  quit,  and  he  would  realize  what  a  fine 
young  fellow  he  had  lost. 

All  of  which  I  faithfully  and  foolishly  did. 
I  worked  on  until  the  time  came  when  I  got  in 

200 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

the  last  of  the  night  coal  by  six  o'clock.  Then  I 
quit  the  job  of  learning  electricity  by  doing  more 
than  two  men's  work  for  a  boy's  wages,  went 
home,  and  proceeded  to  sleep  the  clock  around. 

Fortunately,  I  had  not  stayed  by  the  job  long 
enough  to  injure  myself — though  I  was  compelled 
to  wear  straps  on  my  wrists  for  a  year  afterward. 
But  the  effect  of  this  work  orgy  in  which  I  had 
indulged  was  to  sicken  me  with  work.  I  just 
would  n't  work.  The  thought  of  work  was  re 
pulsive.  I  did  n't  care  if  I  never  settled  down. 
Learning  a  trade  could  go  hang.  It  was  a  whole 
lot  better  to  royster  and  frolic  over  the  world  in 
the  way  I  had  previously  done.  So  I  headed  out 
on  the  adventure-path  again,  starting  to  tramp 
East  by  beating  my  way  on  the  railroads. 


201 


CHAPTER  XXI 

BUT  behold!  As  soon  as  I  went  out  on  the 
adventure-path  I  met  John  Barleycorn  again. 
I  moved  through  a  world  of  strangers,  and  the  act 
of  drinking  together  made  one  acquainted  with 
men  and  opened  the  way  to  adventures.  It  might 
be  in  a  saloon  with  jingled  townsmen,  or  with  a 
genial  railroad  man  well  lighted  up  and  armed 
with  pocket  flasks,  or  with  a  bunch  of  alki-stiffs 
in  a  hang-out.  Yes;  and  it  might  be  in  a  prohi 
bition  state,  such  as  Iowa  was  in  1894,  when  I 
wandered  up  the  main  street  of  Des  Moines  and 
was  variously  invited  by  strangers  into  various 
blind  pigs — I  remember  drinking  in  barber-shops, 
plumbing  establishments,  and  furniture  stores. 

Always  it  was  John  Barleycorn.  Even  a 
tramp,  in  those  halcyon  days,  could  get  most  fre 
quently  drunk.  I  remember,  inside  the  prison  at 
Buffalo,  how  some  of  us  got  magnificently  jingled, 
and  how,  on  the  streets  of  Buffalo  after  our  re- 

202 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

lease,  another  jingle  was  financed  with  pennies 
begged  on  the  main-drag. 

I  had  no  call  for  alcohol,  but  when  I  was  with 
those  who  drank  I  drank  with  them.  I  insisted 
on  traveling  or  loafing  with  the  livest,  keenest 
men,  and  it  was  just  these  live,  keen  ones  that 
did  most  of  the  drinking.  They  were  the  more 
comradely  men,  the  more  venturous,  the  more  in 
dividual.  Perhaps  it  was  too  much  tempera 
ment  that  made  them  turn  from  the  common 
place  and  humdrum  to  find  relief  in  the  lying  and 
fantastic  sureties  of  John  Barleycorn.  Be  that 
as  it  may,  the  men  I  liked  best,  desired  most  to 
be  with,  were  invariably  to  be  found  in  John 
Barleycorn's  company. 

In  the  course  of  my  tramping  over  the  United 
States  I  achieved  a  new  concept.  As  a  tramp,  I 
was  behind  the  scenes  of  society — ay,  and  down 
in  the  cellar.  I  could  watch  the  machinery 
work.  I  saw  the  wheels  of  the  social  machine 
go  around,  and  I  learned  that  the  dignity  of 
manual  labor  was  n't  what  I  had  been  told  it 
was  by  the  teachers,  preachers,  and  politicians. 
The  men  without  trades  were  helpless  cattle.  If 
one  learned  a  trade,  he  was  compelled  to  belong 
to  a  union  in  order  to  work  at  his  trade.  And 

203 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

his  union  was  compelled  to  bully  and  slug  the 
employers'  unions  in  order  to  hold  up  wages  or 
hold  down  hours.  The  employers'  unions  like 
wise  bullied  and  slugged.  I  could  n't  see  any 
dignity  at  all.  And  when  a  workman  got  old, 
or  had  an  accident,  he  was  thrown  into  the  scrap- 
heap  like  any  worn-out  machine.  I  saw  too 
many  of  this  sort  who  were  making  anything  but 
dignified  ends  of  life. 

So  my  new  concept  was  that  manual  labor 
was  undignified,  and  that  it  did  n't  pay.  No 
trade  for  me,  was  my  decision,  and  no  superin 
tendent's  daughter.  And  no  criminality,  I  also 
decided.  That  would  be  almost  as  disastrous  as 
to  be  a  laborer.  Brains  paid,  not  brawn,  and  I 
resolved  never  again  to  offer  my  muscles  for  sale 
in  the  brawn  market.  Brain,  and  brain  only, 
would  I  sell. 

I  returned  to  California  with  the  firm  inten 
tion  of  developing  my  brain.  This  meant  school 
education.  I  had  gone  through  the  grammar 
school  long  ago,  so  I  entered  the  Oakland  High 
School.  To  pay  my  way,  I  worked  as  a  jani 
tor.  My  sister  helped  me,  too;  and  I  was  not 
above  mowing  anybody's  lawn  or  taking  up  and 
beating  carpets  when  I  had  half  a  day  to  spare. 

204 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

I  was  working  to  get  away  from  work,  and  I 
buckled  down  to  it  with  a  grim  realization  of 
the  paradox. 

Boy  and  girl  love  was  left  behind,  and  along 
with  it,  Haydee  and  Louis  Shattuck,  and  the 
early  evening  strolls.  I  had  n't  the  time.  I 
joined  the  Henry  Clay  Debating  Society.  I  was 
received  into  the  homes  of  some  of  the  members, 
where  I  met  nice  girls  whose  skirts  reached  the 
ground.  I  dallied  with  little  home  clubs  wherein 
we  discussed  poetry  and  art  and  the  nuances  of 
grammar.  I  joined  the  socialist  local,  where  we 
studied  and  orated  political  economy,  philosophy, 
and  politics.  I  kept  half-a-dozen  membership 
cards  working  in  the  free  library  and  did  an  im 
mense  amount  of  collateral  reading. 

And  for  a  year  and  a  half  on  end  I  never  took 
a  drink  nor  thought  of  taking  a  drink.  I  had  n't 
the  time,  and  I  certainly  did  not  have  the  in 
clination.  Between  my  j  anitor-work,  my  studies, 
and  innocent  amusements  such  as  chess,  I  had  n't 
a  moment  to  spare.  I  was  discovering  a  new 
world,  and  such  was  the  passion  of  my  explora 
tion  that  the  old  world  of  John  Barleycorn  held 
no  inducements  for  me. 

Come  to  think  of  it,  I  did  enter  a  saloon.  I 
205 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

went  to  see  Johnny  Heinhold  in  the  Last  Chance, 
and  I  went  to  borrow  money.  And  right  here  is 
another  phase  of  John  Barleycorn.  Saloon 
keepers  are  notoriously  good  fellows.  On  an 
average  they  perform  vastly  greater  generosities 
than  do  business  men.  When  I  simply  had  to 
have  ten  dollars,  desperate,  with  no  place  to  turn, 
I  went  to  Johnny  Heinhold.  Several  years  had 
passed  since  I  had  been  in  his  place  or  spent  a 
cent  across  his  bar.  And  when  I  went  to  borrow 
the  ten  dollars  I  did  n't  buy  a  drink,  either.  And 
Johnny  Heinhold  let  me  have  the  ten  dollars, 
without  security  or  interest. 

More  than  once,  in  the  brief  days  of  my 
struggle  for  an  education,  I  went  to  Johnny  Hein 
hold  to  borrow  money.  When  I  entered  the  uni 
versity,  I  borrowed  forty  dollars  from  him,  with 
out  interest,  without  security,  without  buying  a 
drink.  And  yet — and  here  is  the  point,  the  cus 
tom  and  the  code — in  the  days  of  my  prosperity, 
after  the  lapse  of  years,  I  have  gone  out  of  my 
way  by  many  a  long  block  to  spend  across 
Johnny  Heinhold's  bar  deferred  interest  on  the 
various  loans.  Not  that  Johnny  Heinhold  asked 
me  to  do  it  or  expected  me  to  do  it.  I  did  it, 

206 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

as  I  have  said,  in  obedience  to  the  code  I  had 
learned  along  with  all  the  other  things  connected 
with  John  Barleycorn.  In  distress,  when  a  man 
has  no  other  place  to  turn,  when  he  has  n't  the 
slightest  bit  of  security  which  a  savage-hearted 
pawnbroker  would  consider,  he  can  go  to  some 
saloon  keeper  he  knows.  Gratitude  is  inherently 
human.  When  the  man  so  helped  has  money 
again,  depend  upon  it  that  a  portion  will  be  spent 
across  the  bar  of  the  saloon  keeper  who  befriended 
him. 

Why,  I  recollect  the  early  days  of  my  writing 
career,  when  the  small  sums  of  money  I  earned 
from  the  magazines  came  with  tragic  irregularity, 
while  at  the  same  time  I  was  staggering  along 
with  a  growing  family — a  wife,  children,  a 
mother,  a  nephew,  and  my  Mammy  Jennie  and 
her  old  husband  fallen  on  evil  days.  There  were 
two  places  at  which  I  could  borrow  money ;  a  bar 
ber  shop  and  a  saloon.  The  barber  charged  me 
five  per  cent,  per  month  in  advance.  That  is  to 
say,  when  I  borrowed  one  hundred  dollars,  he 
handed  me  ninety-five.  The  other  five  dollars 
he  retained  as  advance  interest  for  the  first  month. 
And  on  the  second  month  I  paid  him  five  dollars 

207 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

more,  and  continued  so  to  do  each  month  until 
I  made  a  ten-strike  with  the  editors  and  lifted  the 
loan. 

The  other  place  to  which  I  came  in  trouble  was 
the  saloon.  This  saloon  keeper  I  had  known  by 
sight  for  a  couple  of  years.  I  had  never  spent 
my  money  in  his  saloon,  and  even  when  I  bor 
rowed  from  him  I  did  n't  spend  any  money.  Yet 
never  did  he  refuse  me  any  sum  I  asked  of  him. 
Unfortunately,  before  I  became  prosperous,  he 
moved  away  to  another  city.  And  to  this  day  I 
regret  that  he  is  gone.  It  is  the  code  I  have 
learned.  The  right  thing  to  do,  and  the  thing 
I  'd  do  right  now  did  I  know  where  he  is,  would 
be  to  drop  in  on  occasion  and  spend  a  few  dol 
lars  across  his  bar  for  old  sake's  sake  and  grati 
tude. 

This  is  not  to  exalt  saloon  keepers.  I  have 
written  it  to  exalt  the  power  of  John  Barleycorn, 
and  to  illustrate  one  more  of  the  myriad  ways 
by  which  a  man  is  brought  in  contact  with  John 
Barleycorn,  until  in  the  end  he  finds  he  cannot  get 
along  without  him. 

But  to  return  to  the  run  of  my  narrative. 
Away  from  the  adventure-path,  up  to  my  ears 
in  study,  every  moment  occupied,  I  lived  oblivi- 

208 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

ous  to  John  Barleycorn's  existence.  Nobody 
about  me  drank.  If  any  had  drunk,  and  had 
they  offered  it  to  me,  I  surely  would  have  drunk. 
As  it  was,  when  I  had  spare  moments  I  spent  them 
playing  chess,  or  going  with  nice  girls  who  were 
themselves  students,  or  in  riding  a  bicycle  when 
ever  I  was  fortunate  enough  to  have  it  out  of  the 
pawnbroker's  possession. 

What  I  am  insisting  upon  all  the  time  is  this: 
in  me  was  not  the  slightest  trace  of  alcoholic 
desire,  and  this  despite  the  long  and  severe  ap 
prenticeship  I  had  served  under  John  Barleycorn. 
I  had  come  back  from  the  other  side  of  life  to  be 
delighted  with  this  Arcadian  simplicity  of  stu 
dent  youths  and  student  maidens.  Also,  I  had 
found  my  way  into  the  realm  of  the  mind,  and  I 
was  intellectually  intoxicated.  Alas!  as  I  was 
to  learn  at  a  later  period,  intellectual  intoxica 
tion,  too,  has  its  katzenjammer. 


209 


CHAPTER  XXII 

THREE  years  was  the  time  required  to  go 
through  high  school.  I  grew  impatient. 
Also,  my  schooling  was  becoming  financially  im 
possible.  At  such  rate  I  could  not  last  out,  and 
I  did  greatly  want  to  go  to  the  state  university. 
When  I  had  done  a  year  of  high  school,  I  decided 
to  attempt  a  short  cut.  I  borrowed  the  money 
and  paid  to  enter  the  senior  class  of  a  "cramming 
joint"  or  academy.  I  was  scheduled  to  gradu 
ate  right  into  the  university  at  the  end  of  four 
months,  thus  saving  two  years. 

And  how  I  did  cram!  I  had  two  years'  new 
work  to  do  in  a  third  of  a  year.  For  five  weeks 
I  crammed,  until  simultaneous  quadratic  equa 
tions  and  chemical  formulas  fairly  oozed  from  my 
ears.  And  then  the  master  of  the  academy  took 
me  aside.  He  was  very  sorry,  but  he  was  com 
pelled  to  give  me  back  my  tuition  fee  and  to  ask 
me  to  leave  the  school.  It  wasn't  a  matter  of 
scholarship.  I  stood  well  in  my  classes,  and  did 

210 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

he  graduate  me  into  the  university  he  was  confi 
dent  that  in  that  institution  I  would  continue  to 
stand  well.  The  trouble  was  that  tongues  were 
gossiping  about  my  case.  What!  In  four 
months  accomplish  two  years'  work!  It  would 
be  a  scandal,  and  the  universities  were  becoming 
severer  in  their  treatment  of  accredited  prep 
schools.  He  could  n't  afford  such  a  scandal, 
therefore  I  must  gracefully  depart. 

I  did.  And  I  paid  back  the  borrowed  money, 
and  gritted  my  teeth,  and  started  to  cram  by 
myself.  There  were  three  months  yet  before  the 
university  entrance-examinations.  Without  labo 
ratories,  without  coaching,  sitting  in  my  bed 
room,  I  proceeded  to  compress  that  two  years' 
work  into  three  months  and  to  keep  reviewed  on 
the  previous  year's  work. 

Nineteen  hours  a  day  I  studied.  For  three 
months  I  kept  this  pace,  only  breaking  it  on  sev 
eral  occasions.  My  body  grew  weary,  my  mind 
grew  weary,  but  I  stayed  with  it.  My  eyes  grew 
weary  and  began  to  twitch,  but  they  did  not  break 
down.  Perhaps,  toward  the  last,  I  got  a  bit 
dotty.  I  know  that  at  the  time  I  was  confident 
I  had  discovered  the  formula  for  squaring  the 
circle;  but  I  resolutely  deferred  the  working  of 

211 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

it  out  until  after  the  examinations.  Then  I 
would  show  them. 

Came  the  several  days  of  the  examinations, 
during  which  time  I  scarcely  closed  my  eyes  in 
sleep,  devoting  every  moment  to  cramming  and 
reviewing.  And  when  I  turned  in  my  last  ex 
amination  paper  I  was  in  full  possession  of  a 
splendid  case  of  brain-fag.  I  didn't  want  to 
see  a  book.  I  did  n't  want  to  think  nor  to  lay 
eyes  on  anybody  who  was  liable  to  think. 

There  was  but  one  prescription  for  such  a  con 
dition,  and  I  gave  it  to  myself — the  adventure- 
path.  I  did  n't  wait  to  learn  the  result  of  my 
examinations.  I  stowed  a  roll  of  blankets  and 
some  cold  food  into  a  borrowed  Whitehall  boat 
and  set  sail.  Out  of  the  Oakland  Estuary  I 
drifted  on  the  last  of  an  early  morning  ebb, 
caught  the  first  of  the  flood  up  bay,  and  raced 
along  with  a  spanking  breeze.  San  Pablo  Bay 
was  smoking,  and  the  Carquinez  Straits  off 
the  Selby  Smelter  were  smoking,  as  I  picked  up 
ahead  and  left  astern  the  old  landmarks  I 
had  first  learned  with  Nelson  in  the  unreefed 
Reindeer. 

Benicia  showed  before  me.  I  opened  the  bight 
of  Turner's  Shipyard,  rounded  the  Solano  wharf, 

212 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

and  surged  along  abreast  of  the  patch  of  tules 
and  the  clustering  fishermen's-arks  where  in  the 
old  days  I  had  lived  and  drunk  deep. 

And  right  here  something  happened  to  me,  the 
gravity  of  which  I  never  dreamed  for  many  a 
long  year  to  come.  I  had  no  intention  of  stop 
ping  at  Benicia.  The  tide  favored,  the  wind 
was  fair  and  howling — glorious  sailing  for  a 
sailor.  Bull  Head  and  Army  Points  showed 
ahead,  marking  the  entrance  to  Suisun  Bay,  which 
I  know  was  smoking.  And  yet,  when  I  laid  eyes 
on  those  fishing-arks  lying  in  the  water-front  tules, 
without  debate,  on  the  instant,  I  put  down  my 
tiller,  came  in  on  the  sheet,  and  headed  for  the 
shore.  On  the  instant,  out  of  the  profound  of 
my  brain-fag,  I  knew  what  I  wanted.  I  wanted 
to  drink.  I  wanted  to  get  drunk. 

The  call  was  imperative.  There  was  no  un 
certainty  about  it.  More  than  anything  else  in 
the  world,  my  frayed  and  frazzled  mind  wanted 
surcease  from  weariness  in  the  way  it  knew  sur 
cease  would  come.  And  right  here  is  the  point. 
For  the  first  time  in  my  life  I  consciously,  de 
liberately  desired  to  get  drunk.  It  was  a  new, 
a  totally  different  manifestation  of  John  Barley 
corn's  power.  It  was  not  a  body  need  for  alco- 

213 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

hoi.  It  was  a  mental  desire.  My  overworked 
and  jaded  mind  wanted  to  forget. 

And  here  the  point  is  drawn  to  its  sharpest. 
Granted  my  prodigious  brain-fag,  nevertheless, 
had  I  never  drunk  in  the  past,  the  thought  would 
never  have  entered  my  mind  to  get  drunk  now. 
Beginning  with  physical  intolerance  for  alcohol, 
for  years  drinking  only  for  the  sake  of  comrade 
ship  and  because  alcohol  was  everywhere  on  the 
adventure-path,  I  had  now  reached  the  stage 
where  my  brain  cried  out,  not  merely  for  a  drink, 
but  for  a  drunk.  And  had  I  not  been  so  long 
used  to  alcohol,  my  brain  would  not  have  so  cried 
out.  I  should  have  sailed  on  past  Bull  Head, 
and  in  the  smoking  white  of  Suisun  Bay,  and  in 
the  wine  of  wind  that  filled  my  sail  and  poured 
through  me,  I  should  have  forgotten  my  weary 
brain  and  rested  and  refreshed  it. 

So  I  sailed  in  to  shore,  made  all  fast,  and  hur 
ried  up  among  the  arks.  Charley  Le  Grant  fell 
on  my  neck.  His  wife,  Lizzie,  folded  me  to  her 
capacious  breast.  Billy  Murphy,  and  Joe  Lloyd, 
and  all  the  survivors  of  the  old  guard,  got  around 
me  and  their  arms  around  me.  Charley  seized 
the  can  and  started  for  Jorgensen's  saloon  across 

214 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

the  railroad  tracks.  That  meant  beer.  I  wanted 
whisky,  so  I  called  after  him  to  bring  a  flask. 

Many  times  that  flask  journeyed  across  the 
railroad  tracks  and  back.  More  old  friends  of 
the  old  free  and  easy  times  dropped  in,  fisher 
men,  Greeks,  and  Russians,  and  French.  They 
took  turns  in  treating,  and  treated  all  around  in 
turn  again.  They  came  and  went,  but  I  stayed 
on  and  drank  with  all.  I  guzzled,  I  swilled.  I 
ran  the  liquor  down  and  joyed  as  the  maggots 
mounted  in  my  brain. 

And  Clam  came  in,  Nelson's  partner  before 
me,  handsome  as  ever,  but  more  reckless,  half  in 
sane,  burning  himself  out  with  whisky.  He  had 
just  had  a  quarrel  with  his  partner  on  the  sloop 
Gazelle,  and  knives  had  been  drawn,  and  blows 
struck,  and  he  was  bent  on  maddening  the  fever 
of  the  memory  with  more  whisky.  And  while  we 
downed  it,  we  remembered  Nelson  and  that  he 
had  stretched  out  his  great  shoulders  for  the  last 
long  sleep  in  this  very  town  of  Benicia;  and  we 
wept  over  the  memory  of  him,  and  remembered 
only  the  good  things  of  him,  and  sent  out  the 
flask  to  be  filled  and  drank  again. 

They  wanted  me  to  stay  over,  but  through  the 
215 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

open  door  I  could  see  the  brave  wind  on  the 
water,  and  my  ears  were  filled  with  the  roar  of 
it.  And  while  I  forgot  that  I  had  plunged  into 
the  books  nineteen  hours  a  day  for  three  solid 
months,  Charley  Le  Grant  shifted  my  outfit  into 
a  big  Columbia  River  salmon  boat.  He  added 
charcoal  and  a  fisherman's  brazier,  a  coffee  pot 
and  frying-pan,  and  the  coffee  and  the  meat,  and 
a  black  bass  fresh  from  the  water  that  day. 

They  had  to  help  me  down  the  rickety  wharf 
and  into  the  salmon  boat.  Likewise  they 
stretched  my  boom  and  sprit  until  the  sail  set 
like  a  board.  Some  feared  to  set  the  sprit;  but 
I  insisted,  and  Charley  had  no  doubts.  He  knew 
me  of  old,  and  knew  that  I  could  sail  as  long 
as  I  could  see.  They  cast  off  my  painter.  I  put 
the  tiller  up,  filled  away  before  it,  and  with  dizzy 
eyes  checked  and  steadied  the  boat  on  her  course 
and  waved  farewell. 

The  tide  had  turned,  and  the  fierce  ebb,  run 
ning  in  the  teeth  of  a  fiercer  wind,  kicked  up  a 
stiff,  upstanding  sea.  Suisun  Bay  was  white 
with  wrath  and  sea-lump.  But  a  salmon  boat  can 
sail,  and  I  knew  how  to  sail  a  salmon  boat.  So 
I  drove  her  into  it,  and  through  it,  and  across, 
and  maundered  aloud  and  chanted  my  disdain 

216 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

for  all  the  books  and  schools.  Cresting  seas 
filled  me  a  foot  or  so  with  water,  but  I  laughed 
at  it  sloshing  about  my  feet,  and  chanted  my  dis 
dain  for  the  wind  and  the  water.  I  hailed  my 
self  a  master  of  life,  riding  on  the  back  of  the 
unleashed  elements,  and  John  Barleycorn  rode 
with  me.  Amid  dissertations  on  mathematics  and 
philosophy  and  spoutings  and  quotations,  I  sang 
all  the  old  songs  learned  in  the  days  when  I  went 
from  the  cannery  to  the  oyster  boats  to  be  a 
pirate — such  songs  as:  "Black  Lulu,"  "Flying 
Cloud,"  "Treat  My  Daughter  Kind-i-ly,"  "The 
Boston  Burglar,"  "Come  All  You  Rambling 
Gambling  Men,"  "I  Wisht  I  Was  a  Little  Bird," 
"Shenandoah,"  and  "Ranzo,  Boys,  Ranzo." 

Hours  afterward,  in  the  fires  of  sunset,  where 
the  Sacramento  and  the  San  Joaquin  tumble  their 
muddy  floods  together,  I  took  the  New  York  Cut- 
Off,  skimmed  across  the  smooth  land-locked  water 
past  Black  Diamond,  on  into  the  San  Joaquin, 
and  on  to  Antioch,  where,  somewhat  sobered  and 
magnificently  hungry,  I  laid  alongside  a  big  po 
tato  sloop  that  had  a  familiar  rig.  Here  were 
old  friends  aboard,  who  fried  my  black  bass  in 
olive  oil.  Then,  too,  there  was  a  meaty  fisher 
man's  stew,  delicious  with  garlic,  and  crusty 

217 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

Italian  bread  without  butter,  and  all  washed 
down  with  pint  mugs  of  thick  and  heady  claret. 
My  salmon  boat  was  a-soak,  but  in  the  snug 
cabin  of  the  sloop  dry  blankets  and  a  dry  bunk 
were  mine;  and  we  lay  and  smoked  and  yarned 
of  old  days,  while  overhead  the  wind  screamed 
through  the  rigging  and  taut  halyards  drummed 
against  the  mast. 


218 


CHAPTER  XXIII 

MY  cruise  in  the  salmon  boat  lasted  a  week, 
and  I  returned  ready  to  enter  the  uni 
versity.  During  the  week's  cruise  I  did  not  drink 
again.  To  accomplish  this  I  was  compelled  to 
avoid  looking  up  old  friends,  for  as  ever  the  ad 
venture-path  was  beset  with  John  Barleycorn.  I 
had  wanted  the  drink  that  first  day,  and  in  the 
days  that  followed  I  did  not  want  it.  My  tired 
brain  had  recuperated.  I  had  no  moral  scruples 
in  the  matter.  I  was  not  ashamed  nor  sorry  be 
cause  of  that  first  day's  orgy  at  Benicia,  and  I 
thought  no  more  about  it,  returning  gladly  to  my 
books  and  studies. 

Long  years  were  to  pass  ere  I  looked  back  upon 
that  day  and  realized  its  significance.  At  the 
time,  and  for  a  long  time  afterward,  I  was  to 
think  of  it  only  as  a  frolic.  But  still  later,  in 
the  slough  of  brain-fag  and  intellectual  weari 
ness,  I  was  to  remember  and  know  the  craving  for 
the  anodyne  that  resides  in  alcohol. 

219 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

In  the  meantime,  after  this  one  relapse  at 
Benicia,  I  went  on  with  my  abstemiousness,  pri 
marily  because  I  did  n't  want  to  drink.  And 
next,  I  was  abstemious  because  my  way  led  among 
books  and  students,  where  no  drinking  was.  Had 
I  been  out  on  the  adventure-path,  I  should  as 
a  matter  of  course  have  been  drinking.  For  that 
is  the  pity  of  the  adventure-path,  which  is  one 
of  John  Barleycorn's  favorite  stamping-grounds. 

I  completed  the  first  half  of  my  freshman  year, 
and  in  January  of  1897  took  up  my  course  for 
the  second  half.  But  the  pressure  from  lack  of 
money,  plus  a  conviction  that  the  university  was 
not  giving  me  all  that  I  wanted  in  the  time  I 
could  spare  for  it,  forced  me  to  leave.  I  was 
not  very  disappointed.  For  two  years  I  had 
studied,  and  in  those  two  years,  what  was  far 
more  valuable,  I  had  done  a  prodigious  amount 
of  reading.  Then,  too,  my  grammar  had  im 
proved.  It  is  true,  I  had  not  yet  learned  that 
I  must  say  "It  is  I";  but  I  no  longer  was  guilty 
of  the  double  negative  in  writing,  though'  still 
prone  to  that  error  in  excited  speech. 

I  decided  immediately  to  embark  on  my  ca 
reer.  I  had  four  preferences :  first,  music ;  second, 
poetry;  third,  the  writing  of  philosophic,  eco- 

220 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

nomic,  and  political  essays;  and,  fourth,  and  last, 
and  least,  fiction  writing.  I  resolutely  cut  out 
music  as  impossible,  settled  down  in  my  bed 
room,  and  tackled  my  second,  third  and  fourth 
choices  simultaneously.  Heavens,  how  I  wrote! 
Never  was  there  a  creative  fever  such  as  mine 
from  which  the  patient  escaped  fatal  results. 
The  way  I  worked  was  enough  to  soften  my 
brain  and  send  me  to  a  mad-house.  I  wrote,  I 
wrote  everything — ponderous  essays,  scientific  and 
sociological,  short  stories,  humorous  verse,  verse 
of  all  sorts  from  triolets  and  sonnets  to  blank 
verse  tragedy  and  elephantine  epics  in  Spense 
rian  stanzas.  On  occasion  I  composed  steadily, 
day  after  day,  for  fifteen  hours  a  day.  At  times 
I  forgot  to  eat,  or  refused  to  tear  myself  away 
from  my  passionate  outpouring  in  order  to 
eat. 

And  then  there  was  the  matter  of  typewriting. 
My  brother-in-law  owned  a  machine  which  he 
used  in  the  daytime.  In  the  night  I  was  free 
to  use  it.  That  machine  was  a  wonder.  I  could 
weep  now  as  I  recollect  my  wrestlings  with  it. 
It  must  have  been  a  first  model  in  the  year  one 
of  the  typewriter  era.  Its  alphabet  was  all  capi 
tals.  It  was  informed  with  an  evil  spirit.  It 

221 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

obeyed  no  known  laws  of  physics,  and  overthrew 
the  hoary  axiom  that  like  things  performed  to 
like  things  produce  like  results.  I  '11  swear  that 
machine  never  did  the  same  thing  in  the  same 
way  twice.  Again  and  again  it  demonstrated 
that  unlike  actions  produce  like  results. 

How  my  back  used  to  ache  with  it !  Prior  to 
that  experience,  my  back  had  been  good  for  every 
violent  strain  put  upon  it  in  a  none  too  gentle 
career.  But  that  typewriter  proved  to  me  that 
I  had  a  pipe-stem  for  a  back.  Also,  it  made  me 
doubt  my  shoulders.  They  ached  as  with  rheu 
matism  after  every  bout.  The  keys  of  that  ma 
chine  had  to  be  hit  so  hard  that  to  one  outside 
the  house  it  sounded  like  distant  thunder  or  some 
one  breaking  up  the  furniture.  I  had  to  hit  the 
keys  so  hard  that  I  strained  my  first  fingers  to 
the  elbows,  while  the  ends  of  my  fingers  were 
blisters  burst  and  blistered  again.  Had  it  been 
my  machine  I  'd  have  operated  it  with  a  carpen 
ter's  hammer. 

The  worst  of  it  was  that  I  was  actually  typing 
my  manuscripts  at  the  same  time  I  was  trying  to 
master  that  machine.  It  was  a  feat  of  physical 
endurance  and  a  brain  storm  combined  to  type 
a  thousand  words,  and  I  was  composing  thousands 

222 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

of  words  every  day  which  just  had  to  be  typed 
for  the  waiting  editors. 

Oh,  between  the  writing  and  the  typewriting 
I  was  well  a-weary.  I  had  brain-  and  nerve-fag, 
and  body- fag  as  well,  and  yet  the  -thought  of 
drink  never  suggested  itself.  I  was  living  too 
high  to  stand  in  need  of  an  anodyne.  All  my 
waking  hours,  except  those  with  that  infernal 
typewriter,  were  spent  in  a  creative  heaven.  And 
along  with  this  I  had  no  desire  for  drink,  because 
I  still  believed  in  many  things — in  the  love  of 
all  men  and  women  in  the  matter  of  man  and 
woman  love;  in  fatherhood;  in  human  justice;  in 
art — in  the  whole  host  of  fond  illusions  that  keep 
the  world  turning  around. 

But  the  waiting  editors  elected  to  keep  on  wait 
ing.  My  manuscripts  made  amazing  round-trip 
records  between  the  Pacific  and  the  Atlantic.  It 
might  have  been  the  weirdness  of  the  typewrit 
ing  that  prevented  the  editors  from  accepting  at 
least  one  little  offering  of  mine.  I  don't  know, 
and  goodness  knows  the  stuff  I  wrote  was  as 
weird  as  its  typing.  I  sold  my  hard-bought 
school  books  for  ridiculous  sums  to  second-hand 
bookmen.  I  borrowed  small  sums  of  money 
wherever  I  could,  and  suffered  my  old  father  to 

223 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

feed  me  with  the  meager  returns  of  his  failing 
strength. 

It  did  n't  last  long,  only  a  few  weeks,  when  I 
had  to  surrender  and  go  to  work.  Yet  I  was  un 
aware  of  any  need  for  the  drink-anodyne.  I  was 
not  disappointed.  My  career  was  retarded,  that 
was  all.  Perhaps  I  did  need  further  preparation. 
I  had  learned  enough  from  the  books  to  realize 
that  I  had  touched  only  the  hem  of  knowledge's 
garment.  I  still  lived  on  the  heights.  My  wak 
ing  hours,  and  most  of  the  hours  I  should  have 
used  for  sleep,  were  spent  with  the  books. 


224 


CHAPTER  XXIV 

OUT  in  the  country,  at  the  Belmont  Academy, 
I  went  to  work  in  a  small,  perfectly  ap 
pointed  steam  laundry.  Another  fellow  and  my 
self  did  all  the  work  from  sorting  and  washing 
to  ironing  the  white  shirts,  collars  and  cuffs,  and 
the  "fancy  starch"  of  the  wives  of  the  professors. 
We  worked  like  tigers,  especially  as  summer  came 
on  and  the  academy  boys  took  to  the  wearing 
of  duck  trousers.  It  consumes  a  dreadful  lot  of 
time  to  iron  one  pair  of  duck  trousers.  And 
there  were  so  many  pairs  of  them.  We  sweated 
our  way  through  long  sizzling  weeks  at  a  task 
that  was  never  done ;  and  many  a  night,  while  the 
students  snored  in  bed,  my  partner  and  I  toiled 
on  under  the  electric  light  at  steam  mangle  or 
ironing  board. 

The  hours  were  long,  the  work  was  arduous, 
despite  the  fact  that  we  became  past  masters 
in  the  art  of  eliminating  waste  motion.  And  I 
was  receiving  thirty  dollars  a  month  and  board — 

225 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

a  slight  increase  over  my  coal-shoveling  and  can 
nery  days,  at  least  to  the  extent  of  board,  which 
cost  my  employer  little  (we  ate  in  the  kitchen), 
but  which  was  to  me  the  equivalent  of  twenty 
dollars  a  month.  My  robuster  strength  of  added 
years,  my  increased  skill,  and  all  I  had  learned 
from  the  books,  were  responsible  for  this  in 
crease  of  twenty  dollars.  Judging  by  my  rate  of 
development,  I  might  hope  before  I  died  to  be 
a  night  watchman  for  sixty  dollars  a  month,  or 
a  policeman  actually  receiving  a  hundred  dollars 
with  pickings. 

So  relentlessly  did  my  partner  and  I  spring 
into  our  work  throughout  the  week  that  by  Sat 
urday  night  we  were  frazzled  wrecks.  I  found 
myself  in  the  old  familiar  work-beast  condition, 
toiling  longer  hours  than  the  horses  toiled,  think 
ing  scarcely  more  frequent  thoughts  than  horses 
think.  The  books  were  closed  to  me.  I  had 
brought  a  trunkful  to  the  laundry,  but  found  my 
self  unable  to  read  them.  I  fell  asleep  the  mo 
ment  I  tried  to  read ;  and  if  I  did  manage  to  keep 
my  eyes  open  for  several  pages,  I  could  not  re 
member  the  contents  of  those  pages.  I  gave  over 
attempts  on  heavy  study,  such  as  jurisprudence, 
political  economy,  and  biology,  and  tried  lighter 

226 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

stuff,  such  as  history.  I  fell  asleep.  I  tried  lit 
erature,  and  fell  asleep.  And  finally,  when  I 
fell  asleep  over  lively  novels,  I  gave  up.  I  never 
succeeded  in  reading  one  book  in  all  the  time  I 
spent  in  the  laundry. 

And  when  Saturday  night  came,  and  the  week's 
work  was  over  until  Monday  morning,  I  knew 
only  one  desire  besides  the  desire  to  sleep,  and 
that  was  to  get  drunk.  This  was  the  second 
time  in  my  life  that  I  had  heard  the  unmistak 
able  call  of  John  Barleycorn.  The  first  time 
it  had  been  because  of  brain-fag.  But  I  had 
no  overworked  brain  now.  On  the  contrary,  all 
I  knew  was  the  dull  numbness  of  a  brain  that  was 
not  worked  at  all.  That  was  the  trouble.  My 
brain  had  become  so  alert  and  eager,  so  quickened 
by  the  wonder  of  the  new  world  the  books  had 
discovered  to  it,  that  it  now  suffered  all  the  misery 
of  stagnancy  and  inaction. 

And  I,  the  long-time  intimate  of  John  Bar 
leycorn,  knew  just  what  he  promised  me — mag 
gots  of  fancy,  dreams  of  power,  forgetfulness, 
anything  and  everything  save  whirling  washers, 
revolving  mangles,  humming  centrifugal  wringers, 
and  fancy  starch  and  interminable  processions 
of  duck  trousers  moving  in  steam  under  my  fly- 

227 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

ing  iron.  And  that's  it.  John  Barleycorn 
makes  his  appeal  to  weakness  and  failure,  to 
weariness  and  exhaustion.  He  is  the  easy  way 
out.  And  he  is  lying  all  the  time.  He  offers 
false  strength  to  the  body,  false  elevation  to  the 
spirit,  making  things  seem  what  they  are  not  and 
vastly  fairer  than  what  they  are. 

But  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  John  Bar 
leycorn  is  protean.  As  well  as  to  weakness  and 
exhaustion,  does  he  appeal  to  too  much  strength, 
to  superabundant  vitality,  to  the  ennui  of  idle 
ness.  He  can  tuck  in  his  arm  the  arm  of  any 
man  in  any  mood.  He  can  throw  the  net  of 
his  lure  over  all  men.  He  exchanges  new  lamps 
for  old,  the  spangles  of  illusion  for  the  drabs 
of  reality,  and  in  the  end  cheats  all  who  traffic 
with  him. 

I  didn't  get  drunk,  however,  for  the  simple 
reason  that  it  was  a  mile  and  a  half  to  the  near 
est  saloon.  And  this,  in  turn,  was  because  the 
call  to  get  drunk  was  not  very  loud  in  my  ears. 
Had  it  been  loud,  I  would  have  traveled  ten 
times  the  distance  to  win  to  the  saloon.  On  the 
other  hand,  had  the  saloon  been  just  around  the 
corner,  I  should  have  got  drunk.  As  it  was,  I 
would  sprawl  out  in  the  shade  on  my  one  day 

228 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

of  rest  and  dally  with  the  Sunday  papers.  But 
I  was  too  weary  even  for  their  froth.  The  comic 
supplement  might  bring  a  pallid  smile  to  my 
face,  and  then  I  would  fall  asleep. 

Although  I  did  not  yield  to  John  Barleycorn 
while  working  in  the  laundry,  a  certain  definite 
result  was  produced.  I  had  heard  the  call,  felt 
the  gnaw  of  desire,  yearned  for  the  anodyne.  I 
was  being  prepared  for  the  stronger  desire  of 
later  years. 

And  the  point  is  that  this  development  of  de 
sire  was  entirely  in  my  brain.  My  body  did 
not  cry  out  for  alcohol.  As  always,  alcohol  was 
repulsive  to  my  body.  When  I  was  bodily  weary 
from  shoveling  coal,  the  thought  of  taking  a  drink 
had  never  flickered  into  my  consciousness.  When 
I  was  brain-wearied  after  taking  the  entrance 
examinations  to  the  university,  I  promptly  got 
drunk.  At  the  laundry,  I  was  suffering  physical 
exhaustion  again,  and  physical  exhaustion  that 
was  not  nearly  as  profound  as  that  of  the  coal- 
shoveling.  But  there  was  a  difference.  When 
I  went  coal-shoveling,  my  mind  had  not  yet 
awakened.  Between  that  time  and  the  laundry 
my  mind  had  found  the  kingdom  of  the  mind. 
While  shoveling  coal,  my  mind  was  somnolent. 

229 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

While  toiling  in  the  laundry,  my  mind,  informed 
and  eager  to  do  and  be,  was  crucified. 

And  whether  I  yielded  to  drink,  as  at  Benicia, 
or  whether  I  refrained,  as  at  the  laundry,  in  my 
brain  the  seeds  of  desire  for  alcohol  were  ger 
minating. 


230 


CHAPTER  XXV 

AFTER  the  laundry,  my  sister  and  her  hus 
band  grubstaked  me  into  the  Klondike.  It 
was  the  first  gold  rush  into  that  region,  the  early 
fall  rush  of  1897.  I  was  twenty-one  years  old, 
and  in  splendid  physical  condition.  I  remem 
ber,  at  the  end  of  the  twenty-eight-mile  portage 
across  Chilkoot  from  Dyea  Beach  to  Lake  Lin- 
derman,  I  was  packing  up  with  the  Indians  and 
outpacking  many  an  Indian.  The  last  pack  into 
Linderman  was  three  miles.  I  back-tripped  it 
four  times  a  day,  and  on  each  forward  trip  car 
ried  one  hundred  and  fifty  pounds.  This  means 
that  over  the  worst  trails  I  daily  traveled  twenty- 
four  miles,  twelve  of  which  were  under  a  bur 
den  of  one  hundred  and  fifty  pounds. 

Yes,  I  had  let  career  go  hang,  and  was  on  the 
adventure-path  again  in  quest  of  fortune.  And 
of  course,  on  the  adventure-path,  I  met  John  Bar 
leycorn.  Here  were  the  chesty  men  again,  rov 
ers  and  adventurers,  and  while  they  did  n't  mind 

231 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

a  grub  famine,  whisky  they  could  not  do  with 
out.  Whisky  went  over  the  trail,  while  the  flour 
lay  cached  and  untouched  by  the  trail-side. 

As  good  fortune  would  have  it,  the  three  men 
in  my  party  were  not  drinkers.  Therefore  I 
did  n't  drink  save  on  rare  occasions  and  disgrace 
fully  when  with  other  men.  In  my  personal 
medicine  chest  was  a  quart  of  whisky.  I  never 
drew  the  cork  till  six  months  afterward,  in  a 
lonely  camp,  where,  without  anesthetics,  a  doctor 
was  compelled  to  operate  on  a  man.  The  doctor 
and  the  patient  emptied  my  bottle  between  them 
and  then  proceeded  to  the  operation. 

Back  in  California  a  year  later,  recovering  from 
scurvy,  I  found  that  my  father  was  dead  and  that 
I  was  the  head  and  the  sole  bread-winner  of  a 
household.  When  I  state  that  I  had  passed  coal 
on  a  steamship  from  Behring  Sea  to  British  Co 
lumbia,  and  traveled  in  the  steerage  from  there  to 
San  Francisco,  it  will  be  understood  that  I  brought 
nothing  back  from  the  Klondike  but  my  scurvy. 

Times  were  hard.  Work  of  any  sort  was  diffi 
cult  to  get.  And  work  of  any  sort  was  what  I 
had  to  take,  for  I  was  still  an  unskilled  laborer. 
I  had  no  thought  of  career.  That  was  over  and 
done  with.  I  had  to  find  food  for  two  mouths 

232 


I  had  let  a  career  go  hang,  and  was  on  the  adventure  path  again 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

beside  my  own  and  keep  a  roof  over  our  heads 
— yes,  and  buy  a  winter  suit,  my  one  suit  being 
decidedly  summery.  I  had  to  get  some  sort  of 
work  immediately.  After  that,  when  I  had 
caught  my  breath,  I  might  think  about  my  future. 

Unskilled  labor  is  the  first  to  feel  the  slack 
ness  of  hard  times,  and  I  had  no  trades  save  those 
of  sailor  and  laundryman.  With  my  new  re 
sponsibilities  I  did  n't  dare  go  to  sea,  and  I  failed 
to  find  a  job  at  laundrying.  I  failed  to  find  a 
job  at  anything.  I  had  my  name  down  in  five 
employment  bureaus.  I  advertised  in  three 
newspapers.  I  sought  out  the  few  friends  I  knew 
who  might  be  able  to  get  me  work;  but  they  were 
either  uninterested  or  unable  to  find  anything  for 
me. 

The  situation  was  desperate.  I  pawned  my 
watch,  my  bicycle,  and  a  mackintosh  of  which  my 
father  had  been  very  proud  and  which  he  had 
left  to  me.  It  was  and  is  my  sole  legacy  in  this 
world.  It  had  cost  fifteen  dollars,  and  the  pawn 
broker  let  me  have  two  dollars  on  it.  And — oh, 
yes — a  water-front  comrade  of  earlier  years  drifted 
along  one  day  with  a  dress  suit  wrapped  in  news 
papers.  He  could  give  no  adequate  explanation 
of  how  he  had  come  to  possess  it,  nor  did  I  press 

235 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

for  an  explanation.  I  wanted  the  suit  myself. 
No;  not  to  wear.  I  traded  him  a  lot  of  rubbish 
which,  being  unpawnable,  was  useless  to  me. 
He  peddled  the  rubbish  for  several  dollars,  while 
I  pledged  the  dress  suit  with  my  pawnbroker  for 
five  dollars.  And  for  all  I  know,  the  pawnbroker 
still  has  the  suit.  I  had  never  intended  to  redeem 
it. 

But  I  could  n't  get  any  work.  Yet  I  was  a 
bargain  in  the  labor  market.  I  was  twenty- two 
years  old,  weighed  one  hundred  and  sixty-five 
pounds  stripped,  every  pound  of  which  was  ex 
cellent  for  toil;  and  the  last  traces  of  my  scurvy 
were  vanishing  before  a  treatment  of  potatoes 
chewed  raw.  I  tackled  every  opening  for  em 
ployment.  I  tried  to  become  a  studio  model,  but 
there  were  too  many  fine-bodied  young  fellows 
out  of  jobs.  I  answered  advertisements  of 
elderly  invalids  in  need  of  companions.  And  I 
almost  became  a  sewing  machine  agent,  on  com 
mission,  without  salary.  But  poor  people  don't 
buy  sewing  machines  in  hard  times,  so  I  was 
forced  to  forego  that  employment. 

Of  course,  it  must  be  remembered  that  along 

"with  such  frivolous  occupations,  I  was  trying  to 

get  work  as  wop,  lumper,  and  roustabout.     But 

236 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

winter  was  coming  on,  and  the  surplus  labor  army 
was  pouring  into  the  cities.  Also,  I,  who  had 
romped  along  carelessly  through  the  countries  of 
the  world  and  the  kingdom  of  the  mind,  was  not 
a  member  of  any  union. 

I  sought  odd  jobs.  I  worked  days,  and  half- 
days,  at  anything  I  could  get.  I  mowed  lawns, 
trimmed  hedges,  took  up  carpets,  beat  {hem,  and 
laid  them  again.  Further,  I  took  the  civil  serv 
ice  examinations  for  mail  carrier  and  passed  first. 
But  alas,  there  was  no  vacancy,  and  I  must  wait. 
And  while  I  waited,  and  in  between  the  odd  jobs 
I  managed  to  procure,  I  started  to  earn  ten  dol 
lars  by  writing  a  newspaper  account  of  a  voyage 
I  had  made,  in  an  open  boat  down  the  Yukon, 
of  nineteen  hundred  miles  in  nineteen  days.  I 
did  n't  know  the  first  thing  about  the  newspaper 
game,  but  I  was  confident  I  'd  get  ten  dollars  for 
my  article. 

But  I  did  n't.  The  first  San  Francisco  news 
paper  to  which  I  mailed  it  never  acknowledged 
receipt  of  the  manuscript,  but  held  on  to  it.  The 
longer  it  held  on  to  it,  the  more  certain  I  was  that 
the  thing  was  accepted. 

And  here  is  the  funny  thing.  Some  are  born 
to  fortune,  and  some  have  fortune  thrust  upon 

237 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

them.  But  in  my  case  I  was  clubbed  into  for 
tune,  and  bitter  necessity  wielded  the  club.  I  had 
long  since  abandoned  all  thought  of  writing  as 
a  career.  My  honest  intention  in  writing  that 
article  was  to  earn  ten  dollars.  And  that  was 
the  limit  of  my  intention.  It  would  help  to 
tide  me  along  until  I  got  steady  employment. 
Had  a  vacancy  occurred  in  the  post  office  at  that 
time,  I  should  have  jumped  at  it. 

But  the  vacancy  did  not  occur,  nor  did  a  steady 
job;  and  I  employed  the  time  between  odd  jobs 
with  writing  a  twenty-one-thousand-word  serial 
for  the  "Youth's  Companion."  I  turned  it  out 
and  typed  it  in  seven  days.  I  fancy  that  was 
what  was  the  matter  with  it,  for  it  came  back. 

It  took  some  time  for  it  to  go  and  come,  and  in 
the  meantime  I  tried  my  hand  at  short  stories.  I 
sold  one  to  the  Overland  Monthly  for  five 
dollars.  The  Black  Cat  gave  me  forty  dollars 
for  another.  The  Overland  Monthly  offered 
me  seven  dollars  and  a  half,  pay  on  publication, 
for  all  the  stories  I  should  deliver.  I  got  my 
bicycle,  my  watch,  and  my  father's  mackintosh 
out  of  pawn  and  rented  a  typewriter.  Also,  I 
paid  up  the  bills  I  owed  to  the  several  groceries 
that  allowed  me  a  small  credit.  I  recall  the  For- 

238 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

tuguese  groceryman  who  never  permitted  my  bill 
to  go  beyond  four  dollars.  Hopkins,  another 
grocer,  could  not  be  budged  beyond  five  dollars. 

And  just  then  came  the  call  from  the  post 
office  to  go  to  work.  It  placed  me  in  a  most 
trying  predicament.  The  sixty-five  dollars  I 
could  earn  regularly  every  month  was  a  terrible 
temptation.  I  could  n't  decide  what  to  do.  And 
I  '11  never  be  able  to  forgive  the  postmaster  of 
Oakland.  I  answered  the  call,  and  I  talked  to 
him  like  a  man.  I  frankly  told  him  the  situation. 
It  looked  as  if  I  might  win  out  at  writing.  The 
chance  was  good,  but  not  certain.  Now,  if  he 
would  pass  me  by  and  select  the  next  man  on  the 
eligible  list,  and  give  me  a  call  at  the  next  va 
cancy — 

But  he  shut  me  off  with:  "Then  you  don't 
want  the  position?" 

"But  I  do,"  I  protested.  "Don't  you  see,  if 
you  will  pass  me  over  this  time — " 

"If  you  want  it  you  will  take  it,"  he  said 
coldly. 

Happily  for  me,  the  cursed  brutality  of  the 
man  made  me  angry. 

"Very  well,"  I  said.     "I  won't  take  it." 


239 


CHAPTER  XXVI 

HAVING  burned  my  one  ship,  I  plunged  into 
writing.  I  am  afraid  I  always  was  an  ex 
tremist.  Early  and  late  I  was  at  it — writing, 
typing,  studying  grammar,  studying  writing  and 
all  the  forms  of  writing,  and  studying  the  writ 
ers  who  succeeded  in  order  to  find  out  how  they 
succeeded.  I  managed  on  five  hours'  sleep  in  the 
twenty-four,  and  came  pretty  close  to  working 
the  nineteen  waking  hours  left  to  me.  My  light 
burned  till  two  and  three  in  the  morning,  which 
led  a  good  neighbor  woman  into  a  bit  of  senti 
mental  Sherlock  Holmes  deduction.  Never  see 
ing  me  in  the  daytime,  she  concluded  that  I  was 
a  gambler,  and  that  the  light  in  my  window  was 
placed  there  by  my  mother  to  guide  her  erring 
son  home. 

The  trouble  with  the  beginner  at  the  writing 
game  is  the  long,  dry  spells,  when  there  is  never 
an  editor's  check  and  everything  pawnable  is 
pawned.  I  wore  my  summer  suit  pretty  well 

240 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

through  that  winter,  and  the  following  summer 
experienced  the  longest,  dryest  spell  of  all,  in  the 
period  when  salaried  men  are  gone  on  vacation 
and  manuscripts  lie  in  editorial  offices  until  vaca 
tion  is  over. 

My  difficulty  was  that  I  had  no  one  to  advise 
me.  I  did  n't  know  a  soul  who  had  written  or 
who  had  ever  tried  to  write.  I  did  n't  even 
know  one  reporter.  Also,  to  succeed  at  the  writ 
ing  game,  I  found  I  had  to  unlearn  about  every 
thing  the  teachers  and  professors  of  literature  of 
the  high  school  and  university  had  taught  me.  I 
was  very  indignant  about  this  at  the  time ;  though 
now  I  can  understand  it.  They  did  not  know  the 
trick  of  successful  writing  in  the  years  of  1895 
and  1896.  They  knew  all  about  "Snow  Bound" 
and  "Sartor  Resartus" ;  but  the  American  editors 
of  1899  did  not  want  such  truck.  They  wanted 
the  1899  truck,  and  offered  to  pay  so  well  for  it 
that  the  teachers  and  professors  of  literature 
would  have  quit  their  jobs  could  they  have  sup 
plied  it. 

I  struggled  along,  stood  off  the  butcher  and 
the  grocer,  pawned  my  watch  and  bicycle  and  my 
father's  mackintosh,  and  I  worked.  I  really  did 
work,  and  went  on  short  commons  of  sleep. 

241 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

Critics  have  complained  about  the  swift  educa 
tion  one  of  my  characters,  Martin  Eden, 
achieved.  In  three  years,  from  a  sailor  with  a 
common  school  education,  I  made  a  successful 
writer  of  him.  The  critics  say  this  is  impossible. 
Yet  I  was  Martin  Eden.  At  the  end  of  three 
working  years,  two  of  which  were  spent  in  high 
school  and  the  university  and  one  spent  at  writ 
ing,  and  all  three  in  studying  immensely  and  in 
tensely,  I  was  publishing  stories  in  magazines  such 
as  the  Atlantic  Monthly ',  was  correcting  proofs 
of  my  first  book  (issued  by  Hough  ton,  Mifflin 
Co.),  was  selling  sociological  articles  to  Cosmo 
politan  and  McClure's,  had  declined  an  asso 
ciate  editorship  proffered  me  by  telegraph  from 
New  York  City,  and  was  getting  ready  to  marry. 
Now  the  foregoing  means  work,  especially  the 
last  year  of  it,  when  I  was  learning  my  trade  as 
a  writer.  And  in  that  year,  running  short  on 
sleep  and  tasking  my  brain  to  its  limit,  I  neither 
drank  nor  cared  to  drink.  So  far  as  I  was  con 
cerned,  alcohol  did  not  exist.  I  did  suffer  from 
brain-fag  on  occasion,  but  alcohol  never  sug 
gested  itself  as  an  ameliorative.  Heavens! 
Editorial  acceptances  and  checks  were  all  the 
amelioratives  I  needed.  A  thin  envelope  from  an 

242 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

editor  in  the  morning's  mail  was  more  stimulating 
than  half-a-dozen  cocktails.  And  if  a  check  of 
decent  amount  came  out  of  the  envelope,  such 
incident  in  itself  was  a  whole  drunk. 

Furthermore,  at  that  time  in  my  life  I  did  not 
know  what  a  cocktail  was.  I  remember,  when 
my  first  book  was  published,  several  Alaskans  who 
were  members  of  the  Bohemian  Club  entertained 
me  one  evening  at  the  club  in  San  Francisco.  We 
sat  in  most  wonderful  leather  chairs,  and  drinks 
were  ordered.  Never  had  I  heard  such  an  order 
ing  of  liqueurs  and  of  highballs  of  particular 
brands  of  Scotch.  I  did  n't  know  what  a  liqueur 
or  a  highball  was,  and  I  didn't  know  that 
"Scotch"  meant  whisky.  I  knew  only  poor 
men's  drinks,  the  drinks  of  the  frontier  and  of 
sailor-town — cheap  beer  and  cheaper  whisky  that 
was  just  called  whisky  and  nothing  else.  I  was 
embarrassed  to  make  a  choice,  and  the  waiter 
nearly  collapsed  when  I  ordered  claret  as  an  after- 
dinner  drink. 


243 


CHAPTER  XXVII 

AS  I  succeeded  with  my  writing,  my  standard 
of  living  rose  and  my  horizon  broadened. 
I  confined  myself  to  writing  and  typing  a 
thousand  words  a  day,  including  Sundays  and 
holidays;  and  I  still  studied  hard,  but  not  so 
hard  as  formerly.  I  allowed  myself  five  and 
one-half  hours  of  actual  sleep.  I  added  this 
half-hour  because  I  was  compelled.  Financial 
success  permitted  me  more  time  for  exercise.  I 
rode  my  wheel  more,  chiefly  because  it  was  per 
manently  out  of  pawn;  and  I  boxed  and  fenced, 
walked  on  my  hands,  jumped  high  and  broad,  put 
the  shot  and  tossed  the  caber,  and  went  swimming. 
And  I  learned  that  more  sleep  is  required  for 
physical  exercise  than  for  mental  exercise. 
There  were  tired  nights,  bodily,  when  I  slept  six 
hours;  and  on  occasion  of  very  severe  exercise 
I  actually  slept  seven  hours.  But  such  sleep 
orgies  were  not  frequent.  There  was  so  much  to 
learn,  so  much  to  be  done,  that  I  felt  wicked 

244 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

when  I  slept  seven  hours.  And  I  blessed  the 
man  who  invented  alarm  clocks. 

And  still  no  desire  to  drink.  I  possessed  too 
many  fine  faiths,  was  living  at  too  keen  a  pitch. 
I  was  a  socialist,  intent  on  saving  the  world,  and 
alcohol  could  not  give  me  the  fervors  that  were 
mine  from  ideas  and  ideals.  My  voice,  on 
account  of  my  successful  writing,  had  added 
weight,  or  so  I  thought.  At  any  rate,  my  repu 
tation  as  a  writer  drew  me  audiences  that  my 
reputation  as  a  speaker  never  could  have  drawn. 
I  was  invited  before  clubs  and  organizations  of 
all  sorts  to  deliver  my  message.  I  fought  the 
good  fight,  and  went  on  studying  and  writing, 
and  was  very  busy. 

Up  to  this  time  I  had  had  a  very  restricted 
circle  of  friends.  But  now  I  began  to  go  about. 
I  was  invited  out,  especially  to  dinner;  and  I 
made  many  friends  and  acquaintances  whose 
economic  lives  were  easier  than  mine  had  been. 
And  many  of  them  drank.  In  their  own  houses 
they  drank  and  offered  me  drink.  They  were 
not  drunkards  any  of  them.  They  just  drank 
temperately,  and  I  drank  temperately  with  them 
as  an  act  of  comradeship  and  accepted  hospitality. 
I  did  not  care  for  it,  neither  wanted  it  nor  did  not 

245 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

want  it,  and  so  small  was  the  impression  made 
by  it  that  I  do  not  remember  my  first  cocktail 
nor  my  first  Scotch  highball. 

Well,  I  had  a  house.  When  one  is  asked  into 
other  houses,  he  naturally  asks  others  into  his 
house.  Behold  the  rising  standard  of  living. 
Having  been  given  drink  in  other  houses,  I  could 
expect  nothing  else  of  myself  than  to  give  drink 
in  my  own  house.  So  I  laid  in  a  supply  of  beer 
and  whisky  and  table  claret.  Never  since  that 
has  my  house  not  been  well  supplied. 

And  still,  through  all  this  period,  I  did  not 
care  in  the  slightest  for  John  Barleycorn.  I 
drank  when  others  drank,  and  with  them,  as  a 
social  act.  And  I  had  so  little  choice  in  the  mat 
ter  that  I  drank  whatever  they  drank.  If  they 
elected  whisky,  then  whisky  it  was  for  me.  If 
they  drank  root  beer  or  sarsaparilla,  I  drank  root 
beer  or  sarsaparilla  with  them.  And  when  there 
were  no  friends  in  the  house,  why,  I  did  n't  drink 
anything.  Whisky  decanters  were  always  in  the 
room  where  I  wrote,  and  for  months  and  years 
I  never  knew  what  it  was,  when  by  myself,  to 
take  a  drink. 

When  out  at  dinner,  I  noticed  the  kindly, 
genial  glow  of  the  preliminary  cocktail.  It 

246 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

seemed  a  very  fitting  and  gracious  thing.  Yet  so 
little  did  I  stand  in  need  of  it,  with  my  own  high 
intensity  and  vitality,  that  I  never  thought  it 
worth  while  to  have  a  cocktail  before  my  own 
meal  when  I  ate  alone. 

On  the  other  hand,  I  well  remember  a  very 
brilliant  man,  somewhat  older  than  I,  who  occa 
sionally  visited  me,  He  liked  whisky,  and  I  re 
call  sitting  whole  afternoons  in  my  den,  drinking 
steadily  with  him,  drink  for  drink,  until  he  was 
mildly  lighted  up  and  I  was  slightly  aware  that 
I  had  drunk  some  whisky.  Now  why  did  I  do 
this?  I  don't  know,  save  that  the  old  schooling 
held,  the  training  of  the  old  days  and  nights,  glass 
in  hand,  with  men,  the  drinking  ways  of  drink  and 
drinkers. 

Besides,  I  no  longer  feared  John  Barleycorn. 
Mine  was  that  most  dangerous  stage  when  a  man 
believes  himself  John  Barleycorn's  master.  I 
had  proved  it  to  my  satisfaction  in  the  long  years 
of  work  and  study.  I  could  drink  when  I  wanted, 
refrain  when  I  wanted,  drink  without  getting 
drunk,  and  to  cap  everything  I  was  thoroughly 
conscious  that  I  had  no  liking  for  the  stuff.  Dur 
ing  this  period  I  drank  precisely  for  the  same 
reason  I  had  drunk  with  Scotty  and  the  harpooner 

247 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

and  with  the  oyster  pirates — because  it  was  an 
act  performed  by  men  with  whom  I  wanted  to 
behave  as  a  man.  These  brilliant  ones,  these 
adventurers  of  the  .mind,  drank.  Very  well. 
There  was  no  reason  I  should  not  drink  with 
them, — I  who  knew  so  confidently  that  I  had 
nothing  to  fear  from  John  Barleycorn. 

And  the  foregoing  was  my  attitude  of  mind 
for  years.  Occasionally  I  got  well  jingled,  but 
such  occasions  were  rare.  It  interfered  with  my 
work,  and  I  permitted  nothing  to  interfere  with 
my  work.  I  remember,  when  spending  several 
months  in  the  East  End  of  London,  during  which 
time  I  wrote  a  book  and  adventured  much 
amongst  the  worst  of  the  slum  classes,  that  I  got 
drunk  several  times  and  was  mightily  wroth  with 
myself  because  it  interfered  with  my  writing. 
Yet  these  very  times  were  because  I  was  out  on 
the  adventure-path,  where  John  Barleycorn  is  al 
ways  to  be  found. 

Then,  too,  with  the  certitude  of  long  training 
and  unholy  intimacy,  there  were  occasions  when 
I  engaged  in  drinking-bouts  with  men.  Of 
course,  this  was  on  the  adventure-path  in  various 
parts  of  the  world,  and  it  was  a  matter  of  pride. 
It  is  a  queer  man-pride  that  leads  one  to  drink 

248 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

with  men  in  order  to  show  as  strong  a  head  as 
they.  But  this  queer  man-pride  is  no  theory. 
It  is  a  fact. 

For  instance,  a  wild  band  of  young  revolu 
tionists  invited  me  as  the  guest  of  honor  to  a  beer 
bust.  It  is  the  only  technical  beer  bust  I  ever 
attended.  I  did  not  know  the  true  inwardness 
of  the  affair  when  I  accepted.  I  imagined  that 
the  talk  would  be  wild  and  high,  that  some  of 
them  might  drink  more  than  they  ought,  and  that 
I  would  drink  discreetly.  But  it  seemed  these 
beer  busts  were  a  diversion  of  these  high-spirited 
young  fellows  whereby  they  whiled  away  the 
tedium  of  existence  by  making  fools  of  their  bet 
ters.  As  I  learned  afterward,  they  had  got  their 
previous  guest  of  honor,  a  brilliant  young  radi 
cal,  unskilled  in  drinking,  quite  pipped. 

When  I  found  myself  with  them,  and  the  situ 
ation  dawned  on  me,  up  rose  my  queer  man-pride. 
I  'd  show  them,  the  young  rascals.  I  'd  show 
them  who  was  husky  and  chesty,  who  had  the 
vitality  and  the  constitution,  the  stomach  and  the 
head,  who  could  make  most  of  a  swine  of  him 
self  and  show  it  least.  These  unlicked  cubs  who 
thought  they  could  out-drink  me! 

You  see,  it  was  an  endurance  test,  and  no  man 
249 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

likes  to  give  another  best.  Faugh!  It  was 
steam  beer.  I  had  learned  more  expensive  brews. 
Not  for  years  had  I  drunk  steam  beer;  but  when 
I  had,  I  had  drunk  with  men,  and  I  guessed  I 
could  show  these  youngsters  some  ability  in  beer- 
guzzling.  And  the  drinking  began,  and  I  had 
to  drink  with  the  best  of  them.  Some  of  them 
might  lag,  but  the  guest  of  honor  was  not  per 
mitted  to  lag. 

And  all  my  austere  nights  of  midnight  oil, 
all  the  books  I  had  read,  all  the  wisdom  I  had 
gathered,  went  glimmering  before  the  ape  and 
tiger  in  me  that  crawled  up  from  the  abysm  of 
my  heredity,  atavistic,  competitive  and  brutal, 
lustful  with  strength  and  desire  to  outswine  the 
swine. 

And  when  the  session  broke  up  I  was  still  on 
my  feet,  and  I  walked  erect,  unswaying — which 
was  more  than  can  be  said  of  some  of  my  hosts. 
I  recall  one  of  them  in  indignant  tears  on  the 
street  corner,  weeping  as  he  pointed  out  my  sober 
condition.  Little  he  dreamed  the  iron  clutch, 
born  of  old  training,  with  which  I  held  to  my 
consciousness  in  my  swimming  brain,  kept  control 
of  my  muscles  and  my  qualms,  kept  my  voice  un 
broken  and  easy  and  my  thoughts  consecutive  and 

250 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

logical.  Yes,  and  mixed  up  with  it  all  I  was 
privily  a-grin.  They  had  n't  made  a  fool  of  me 
in  that  drinking  bout.  And  I  was  proud  of  my 
self  for  the  achievement.  Darn  it,  I  am  still 
proud,  so  strangely  is  man  compounded. 

But  I  did  n't  write  my  thousand  words  next 
morning.  I  was  sick,  poisoned.  It  was  a  day 
of  wretchedness.  In  the  afternoon  I  had  to  give 
a  public  speech.  I  gave  it,  and  I  am  confident 
it  was  as  bad  as  I  felt.  Some  of  my  hosts  were 
there  in  the  front  rows  to  mark  any  signs  on  me 
of  the  night  before.  I  don't  known  what  signs 
they  marked,  but  I  marked  signs  on  them  and  took 
consolation  in  the  knowledge  that  they  were  just 
as  sick  as  I. 

Never  again,  I  swore.  And  I  have  never  been 
inveigled  into  another  beer  bust.  For  that  mat 
ter,  that  was  my  last  drinking  bout  of  any  sort. 
Oh,  I  have  drunk  ever  since,  but  with  more  wis 
dom,  more  discretion,  and  never  in  a  competi 
tive  spirit.  It  is  thus  the  seasoned  drinker  grows 
seasoned. 

To  show  that  at  this  period  in  my  life  drink 
ing  was  wholly  a  matter  of  companionship,  I  re 
member  crossing  the  Atlantic  in  the  old  Teutonic. 
It  chanced,  at  the  start,  that  I  chummed  with  an 

251 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

English  cable  operator  and  a  younger  member  of 
a  Spanish  shipping  firm.  Now  the  only  thing 
they  drank  was  "horse's  neck" — a  long,  soft,  cool 
drink  with  an  apple  peel  or  an  orange  peel  float 
ing  in  it.  And  for  that  whole  voyage  I  drank 
horse's  necks  with  my  two  companions.  On  the 
other  hand,  had  they  drunk  whisky,  I  should  have 
drunk  whisky  with  them.  From  this  it  must  not 
be  concluded  that  I  was  merely  weak.  I  did  n't 
care.  I  had  no  morality  in  the  matter.  I  was 
strong  with  youth,  and  unafraid,  and  alcohol  was 
an  utterly  negligible  question  so  far  as  I  was  con 
cerned. 


252 


CHAPTER  XXVIII 

NOT  yet  was  I  ready  to  tuck  my  arm  in  John 
Barleycorn's.  The  older  I  got,  the  greater 
my  success,  the  more  money  I  earned,  the  wider 
was  the  command  of  the  world  that  became  mine 
and  the  more  prominently  did  John  Barleycorn 
bulk  in  my  life.  And  still  I  maintained  no  more 
than  a  nodding  acquaintance  with  him.  I  drank 
for  the  sake  of  sociability,  and  when  alone  I  did 
not  drink.  Sometimes  I  got  jingled,  but  I  con 
sidered  such  jingles  the  mild  price  I  paid  for 
sociability. 

To  show  how  unripe  I  was  for  John  Barley 
corn,  when,  at  this  time,  I  descended  into  my 
slough  of  despond,  I  never  dreamed  of  turning 
to  John  Barleycorn  for  a  helping  hand.  I  had 
life  troubles  and  heart  troubles  which  are  neither 
here  nor  there  in  this  narrative.  But,  combined 
with  them,  were  intellectual  troubles  which  are 
indeed  germane. 

Mine  was  no  uncommon  experience.  I  had 
read  too  much  positive  science  and  lived  too  much 

253 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

positive  life.  In  the  eagerness  of  youth  I  had 
made  the  ancient  mistake  of  pursuing  Truth  too 
relentlessly.  I  had  torn  her  veils  from  her,  and 
the  sight  was  too  terrible  for  me  to  stand.  In 
brief,  I  lost  my  fine  faiths  in  pretty  well  every 
thing  except  humanity,  and  the  humanity  I  re 
tained  faith  in  was  a  very  stark  humanity  indeed. 

This  long  sickness  of  pessimism  is  too  well 
known  to  most  of  us  to  be  detailed  here.  Let 
it  suffice  to  state  that  I  had  it  very  bad.  I  medi 
tated  suicide  coolly,  as  a  Greek  philosopher  might. 
My  regret  was  that  there  were  too  many  de 
pendent  directly  upon  me  for  food  and  shelter 
for  me  to  quit  living.  But  that  was  sheer  mo 
rality.  What  really  saved  me  was  the  one  re 
maining  illusion — the  PEOPLE. 

The  things  I  had  fought  for  and  burned  my 
midnight  oil  for,  had  failed  me.  Success — I 
despised  it.  Recognition — it  was  dead  ashes. 
Society,  men  and  women  above  the  ruck  and  the 
muck  of  the  water-front  and  the  forecastle — I  was 
appalled  by  their  unlovely  mental  mediocrity. 
Love  of  woman — it  was  like  all  the  rest.  Money 
— I  could  sleep  in  only  one  bed  at  a  time,  and  of 
what  worth  was  an  income  of  a  hundred  porter 
houses  a  day  when  I  could  eat  only  one*?  Art, 

254 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

culture — in  the  face  of  the  iron  facts  of  biology 
such  things  were  ridiculous,  the  exponents  of  such 
things  only  the  more  ridiculous. 

From  the  foregoing  it  can  be  seen  how  very 
sick  I  was.  I  was  born  a  fighter.  The  things  I 
had  fought  for  had  proved  not  worth  the  fight. 
Remained  the  PEOPLE.  My  fight  was  finished, 
yet  something  was  left  still  to  fight  for — the 
PEOPLE. 

But  while  I  was  discovering  this  one  last  tie 
to  bind  me  to  life,  in  my  extremity,  in  the  depths 
of  despond,  walking  in  the  valley  of  the  shadow, 
my  ears  were  deaf  to  John  Barleycorn.  Never 
the  remotest  whisper  arose  in  my  consciousness 
that  John  Barleycorn  was  the  anodyne,  that  he 
could  lie  me  along  to  live.  One  way  only  was 
uppermost  in  my  thought — my  revolver,  the 
crashing  eternal  darkness  of  a  bullet.  There  was 
plenty  of  whisky  in  the  house — for  my  guests.  I 
never  touched  it.  I  grew  afraid  of  my  revolver 
— afraid  during  the  period  in  which  the  radiant, 
flashing  vision  of  the  PEOPLE  was  forming  in 
my  mind  and  will.  So  obsessed  was  I  with  the 
desire  to  die,  that  I  feared  I  might  commit  the 
act  in  my  sleep,  and  I  was  compelled  to  give  my 
revolver  away  to  others  who  were  to  lose  it  for 

255 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

me  where  my  subconscious  hand  might  not  find  it. 

But  the  PEOPLE  saved  me.  By  the  PEOPLE 
was  I  handcuffed  to  life.  There  was  still  one 
fight  left  in  me,  and  here  was  the  thing  for  which 
to  fight.  I  threw  all  precaution  to  the  winds, 
threw  myself  with  fiercer  zeal  into  the  fight  for 
socialism,  laughed  at  the  editors  and  publishers 
who  warned  me  and  who  were  the  sources  of  my 
hundred  porterhouses  a  day,  and  was  brutally 
careless  of  whose  feelings  I  hurt  and  of  how  sav 
agely  I  hurt  them.  As  the  "well-balanced 
radicals"  charged  at  the  time,  my  efforts  were  so 
strenuous,  so  unsafe  and  unsane,  so  ultra-revolu 
tionary,  that  I  retarded  the  socialist  development 
in  the  United  States  by  five  years.  In  passing, 
I  wish  to  remark,  at  this  late  date,  that  it  is  my 
fond  belief  that  I  accelerated  the  socialist  devel 
opment  in  the  United  States  by  at  least  five 
minutes. 

It  was  the  PEOPLE,  and  no  thanks  to  John 
Barleycorn,  who  pulled  me  through  my  long  sick 
ness.  And  when  I  was  convalescent,  came  the 
love  of  woman  to  complete  the  cure  and  lull  my 
pessimism  asleep  for  many  a  long  day,  until  John 
Barleycorn  again  awoke  it.  But,  in  the  mean 
time,  I  pursued  Truth  less  relentlessly,  refraining 

256 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

from  tearing  her  last  veils  aside  even  when  I 
clutched  them  in  my  hand.  I  no  longer  cared  to 
look  upon  Truth  naked.  I  refused  to  permit  my 
self  to  see  a  second  time  what  I  had  once  seen. 
And  the  memory  of  what  I  had  that  time  seen  I 
resolutely  blotted  from  my  mind. 

And  I  was  very  happy.  Life  went  well  with 
me.  I  took  delight  in  little  things.  The  big 
things  I  declined  to  take  too  seriously.  I  still 
read  the  books,  but  not  with  the  old  eagerness. 
I  still  read  the  books  to-day,  but  never  again  shall 
I  read  them  with  that  old  glory  of  youthful  pas 
sion  when  I  harked  to  the  call  from  over  and  be 
yond  that  whispered  me  on  to  win  to  the  mystery 
at  the  back  of  life  and  behind  the  stars. 

The  point  of  this  chapter  is  that,  in  the  long 
sickness  that  at  some  time  comes  to  most  of  us, 
I  came  through  without  any  appeal  for  aid  to 
John  Barleycorn.  Love,  socialism,  the  PEOPLE 
— healthful  figments  of  man's  mind — were  the 
things  that  cured  and  saved  me.  If  ever  a  man 
was  not  a  born  alcoholic,  I  believe  that  I  am  that 
man.  And  yet  .  .  .  well,  let  the  succeeding 
chapters  tell  their  tale,  for  in  them  will  be  shown 
how  I  paid  for  my  previous  quarter  of  a  century 
of  contact  with  ever-accessible  John  Barleycorn. 

257 


CHAPTER  XXIX 

AFTER  my  long  sickness  my  drinking  con 
tinued  to  be  convivial.  I  drank  when 
others  drank  and  I  was  with  them.  But,  imper 
ceptibly,  my  need  for  alcohol  took  form  and  be 
gan  to  grow.  It  was  not  a  body  need.  I  boxed, 
swam,  sailed,  rode  horses,  lived  in  the  open  an 
arrantly  healthful  life,  and  passed  life  insurance 
examinations  with  flying  colors.  In  its  incep 
tion,  now  that  I  look  back  upon  it,  this  need  for 
alcohol  was  a  mental  need,  a  nerve  need,  a  good- 
spirits  need.  How  can  I  explain  *? 

It  was  something  like  this.  Physiologically, 
from  the  standpoint  of  palate  and  stomach,  alco 
hol  was,  as  it  had  always  been,  repulsive.  It 
tasted  no  better  than  beer  did  when  I  was  five, 
than  bitter  claret  did  when  I  was  seven.  When 
I  was  alone,  writing  or  studying,  I  had  no  need 
for  it.  But — I  was  growing  old,  or  wise,  or  both, 
or  senile  as  an  alternative.  When  I  was  in  com 
pany  I  was  less  pleased,  less  excited,  with  the 

258 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

things  said  and  done.  Erstwhile  worth-while 
fun  and  stunts  seemed  no  longer  worth  while ;  and 
it  was  a  torment  to  listen  to  the  insipidities  and 
stupidities  of  women,  to  the  pompous,  arrogant 
sayings  of  the  little  half-baked  men.  It  is  the 
penalty  one  pays  for  reading  the  books  too  much, 
or  for  being  oneself  a  fool.  In  my  case  it  does 
not  matter  which  was  my  trouble.  The  trouble 
itself  was  the  fact.  The  condition  of  the  fact 
was  mine.  For  me  the  life,  and  light,  and 
sparkle  of  human  intercourse  were  dwindling. 

I  had  climbed  too  high  among  the  stars,  or, 
maybe,  I  had  slept  too  hard.  Yet  I  was  not  hys 
terical  nor  in  any  way  overwrought.  My  pulse 
was  normal.  My  heart  was  an  amazement  of  ex 
cellence  to  the  insurance  doctors.  My  lungs 
threw  the  said  doctors  into  ecstasies.  I  wrote  a 
thousand  words  every  day.  I  was  punctiliously 
exact  in  dealing  with  all  the  affairs  of  life  that 
fell  to  my  lot.  I  exercised  in  joy  and  gladness. 
I  slept  at  night  like  a  babe.  But — 

Well,  as  soon  as  I  got  out  in  the  company  of 
others  I  was  driven  to  melancholy  and  spiritual 
tears.  I  could  neither  laugh  with  nor  at  the 
solemn  utterances  of  men  I  esteemed  ponderous 
asses;  nor  could  I  laugh  with  nor  at,  nor  engage 

259 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

in  my  old-time  lightsome  persiflage,  with  the  silly 
superficial  chatterings  of  women,  who,  under 
neath  all  their  silliness  and  softness,  were  as 
primitive,  direct,  and  deadly  in  their  pursuit  of 
biological  destiny  as  the  monkey  women  were  be 
fore  they  shed  their  furry  coats  and  replaced  them 
with  the  furs  of  other  animals. 

And  I  was  not  pessimistic.  I  swear  I  was  not 
pessimistic.  I  was  merely  bored.  I  had  seen  the 
same  show  too  often,  listened  too  often  to  the  same 
songs  and  the  same  jokes.  I  knew  too  much 
about  the  box-office  receipts.  I  knew  the  cogs 
of  the  machinery  behind  the  scenes  so  well,  that 
the  posing  on  the  stage,  and  the  laughter  and  the 
song,  could  not  drown  the  creaking  of  the  wheels 
behind. 

It  does  n't  pay  to  go  behind  the  scenes  and  see 
the  angel- voiced  tenor  beat  his  wife.  Well,  I  'd 
been  behind,  and  I  was  paying  for  it.  Or  else 
I  was  a  fool.  It  is  immaterial  which  was  my 
situation.  The  situation  is  what  counts,  and  the 
situation  was  that  social  intercourse  for  me  was 
getting  painful  and  difficult.  On  the  other  hand, 
it  must  be  stated  that  on  rare  occasions,  on  very 
rare  occasions,  I  did  meet  rare  souls,  or  fools  like 
me,  with  whom  I  could  spend  magnificent  hours 

260 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

among  the  stars,  or  in  the  paradise  of  fools.  I 
was  married  to  a  rare  soul,  or  a  fool,  who  never 
bored  me  and  who  was  always  a  source  of  new 
and  unending  surprise  and  delight.  But  I  could 
not  spend  all  my  hours  solely  in  her  company. 
Nor  would  it  have  been  fair,  nor  wise,  to  compel 
her  to  spend  all  her  hours  in  my  company.  Be 
sides,  I  had  written  a  string  of  successful  books, 
and  society  demands  some  portion  of  the  recrea 
tive  hours  of  a  fellow  that  writes  books.  And 
any  normal  man,  of  himself  and  his  needs,  de 
mands  some  hours  of  his  fellow  man. 

And  now  we  begin  to  come  to  it.  How  to  face 
social  intercourse  with  the  glamour  gone4? 
John  Barleycorn!  The  ever-patient  one  had 
waited  a  quarter  of  a  century  and  more  for  me 
to  reach  my  hand  out  in  need  of  him.  His 
thousand  tricks  had  failed,  thanks  to  my  consti 
tution  and  good  luck,  but  he  had  more  tricks  in 
his  bag.  A  cocktail  or  two,  or  several,  I  found, 
cheered  me  up  for  the  foolishness  of  foolish 
people.  A  cocktail,  or  several,  before  dinner,  en 
abled  me  to  laugh  whole-heartedly  at  things 
which  had  long  since  ceased  being  laughable. 
The  cocktail  was  a  prod,  a  spur,  a  kick,  to  my 
jaded  mind  and  bored  spirits.  It  recrudesced  the 

261 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

laughter  and  the  song,  and  put  a  lilt  into  my  own 
imagination  so  that  I  could  laugh  and  sing  and 
say  foolish  things  with  the  liveliest  of  them,  or 
platitudes  with  verve  and  intensity  to  the  satis 
faction  of  the  pompous  mediocre  ones  who  knew 
no  other  way  to  talk. 

A  poor  companion  without  a  cocktail,  I  became 
a  very  good  companion  with  one.  I  achieved 
a  false  exhilaration,  drugged  myself  to  merri 
ment.  And  the  thing  began  so  imperceptibly, 
that  I,  old  intimate  of  John  Barleycorn,  never 
dreamed  whither  it  was  leading  me.  I  was  be 
ginning  to  call  for  music  and  wine ;  soon  I  should 
be  calling  for  madder  music  and  more  wine. 

It  was  at  this  time  I  became  aware  of  wait 
ing  with  expectancy  for  the  pre-dinner  cocktail. 
I  wanted  it,  and  I  was  conscious  that  I  wanted  it. 
I  remember,  while  war-corresponding  in  the  Far 
East,  of  being  irresistibly  attracted  to  a  certain 
home.  Besides  accepting  all  invitations  to  din 
ner,  I  made  a  point  of  dropping  in  almost  every 
afternoon.  Now,  the  hostess  was  a  charming 
woman,  but  it  was  not  for  her  sake  that  I  was 
under  her  roof  so  frequently.  It  happened  that 
she  made  by  far  the  finest  cocktail  procurable  in 
that  large  city  where  drink-mixing  on  the  part 

262 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

of  the  foreign  population  was  indeed  an  art.  Up 
at  the  club,  down  at  the  hotels,  and  in  other  pri 
vate  houses,  no  such  cocktails  were  created.  Her 
cocktails  were  subtle.  They  were  masterpieces. 
They  were  the  least  repulsive  to  the  palate  and 
carried  the  most  "kick."  And  yet,  I  desired  her 
cocktails  only  for  sociability's  sake,  to  key  myself 
to  sociable  moods.  When  I  rode  away  from  that 
city,  across  hundreds  of  miles  of  rice-fields  and 
mountains,  and  through  months  of  campaigning, 
and  on  with  the  victorious  Japanese  into  Man 
churia,  I  did  not  drink.  Several  bottles  of 
whisky  were  always  to  be  found  on  the  backs  of 
my  pack-horses.  Yet  I  never  broached  a  bottle 
for  myself,  never  took  a  drink  by  myself,  and 
never  knew  a  desire  to  take  such  a  drink.  Oh, 
if  a  white  man  came  into  my  camp,  I  opened  a 
bottle  and  we  drank  together  according  to  the 
way  of  men,  just  as  he  would  open  a  bottle  and 
drink  with  me  if  I  came  into  his  camp.  I  carried 
that  whisky  for  social  purposes,  and  I  so  charged 
it  up  in  my  expense  account  to  the  newspaper 
for  which  I  worked. 

Only  in  retrospect  can  I  mark  the  almost  im 
perceptible  growth  of  my  desire.  There  were 
little  hints  then  that  I  did  not  take,  little  straws 

263 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

in  the  wind  that  I  did  not  see,  little  incidents  the 
gravity  of  which  I  did  not  realize. 

For  instance,  for  some  years  it  had  been  my 
practice  each  winter  to  cruise  for  six  or  eight 
weeks  on  San  Francisco  Bay.  My  stout  sloop 
yacht,  the  Spray,  had  a  comfortable  cabin  and  a 
coal  stove.  A  Korean  boy  did  the  cooking,  and  I 
usually  took  a  friend  or  so  along  to  share  the  joys 
of  the  cruise.  Also,  I  took  my  machine  along 
and  did  my  thousand  words  a  day.  On  the  par 
ticular  trip  I  have  in  mind,  Cloudesley  and  Toddy 
came  along.  This  was  Toddy's  first  trip.  On 
previous  trips  Cloudesley  had  elected  to  drink 
beer;  so  I  had  kept  the  yacht  supplied  with  beer 
and  had  drunk  beer  with  him. 

But  on  this  cruise  the  situation  was  different. 
Toddy  was  so  nicknamed  because  of  his  diabolical 
cleverness  in  concocting  toddies.  So  I  brought 
whisky  along — a  couple  of  gallons.  Alas !  Many 
another  gallon  I  bought,  for  Cloudesley  and  I  got 
into  the  habit  of  drinking  a  certain  hot  toddy  of 
huge  dimensions  that  actually  tasted  delicious  go 
ing  down  and  that  carried  the  most  exhilarating 
kick  imaginable. 

I  liked  those  toddies.  I  grew  to  look  forward 
to  the  making  of  them.4  We  drank  them  regu- 

264 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

larly,  one  before  breakfast,  one  before  dinner,  one 
before  supper,  and  a  final  one  when  we  .went  to 
bed.  We  never  got  drunk.  But  I  will  say  that 
four  times  a  day  we  were  very  genial.  And 
when,  in  the  middle  of  the  cruise,  Toddy  was 
called  back  to  San  Francisco  on  business,  Cloudes- 
ley  and  I  saw  to  it  that  the  Korean  boy  mixed 
toddies  regularly  for  us  according  to  formula. 

But  that  was  only  on  the  boat.  Back  on  the 
land,  in  my  house,  I  took  no  before-breakfast  eye- 
opener,  no  bed-going  nightcap.  And  I  have  n't 
drunk  hot  toddies  since,  and  that  was  many  a  year 
ago.  But  the  point  is,  I  liked  those  toddies.  The 
geniality  of  which  they  were  provocative  was 
marvelous.  They  were  eloquent  proselyters  for 
John  Barleycorn  in  their  small  insidious  way. 
They  were  tickles  of  the  something  destined  to 
grow  into  daily  and  deadly  desire.  And  I  did  n't 
know,  never  dreamed — I,  who  had  lived  with 
John  Barleycorn  for  so  many  years  and  laughed 
at  all  his  unavailing  attempts  to  win  me. 


265 


CHAPTER  XXX 

PART  of  the  process  of  recovering  from  my 
long  sickness  was  to  find  delight  in  little 
things,  in  things  unconnected  with  books  and  prob 
lems,  in  play,  in  games  of  tag  in  the  swimming 
pool,  in  flying  kites,  in  fooling  with  horses,  in 
working  out  mechanical  puzzles.  As  a  result,  I 
grew  tired  of  the  city.  On  the  ranch,  in  the  Val 
ley  of  the  Moon,  I  found  my  paradise.  I  gave 
up  living  in  cities.  All  the  cities  held  for  me 
were  music,  the  theater,  and  Turkish  baths. 

And  all  went  well  with  me.  I  worked  hard, 
played  hard,  and  was  very  happy.  I  read  more 
fiction  and  less  fact.  I  did  not  study  a  tithe  as 
much  as  I  had  studied  in  the  past.  I  still  took  an 
interest  in  the  fundamental  problems  of  existence, 
but  it  was  a  very  cautious  interest;  for  I  had 
burned  my  fingers  that  time  I  clutched  at  the  veils 
of  Truth  and  rent  them  from  her.  There  was 
a  bit  of  lie  in  this  attitude  of  mine,  a  bit  of  hy 
pocrisy;  but  the  lie  and  the  hypocrisy  were  those 

266 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

of  a  man  desiring  to  live.  I  deliberately  blinded 
myself  to  what  I  took  to  be  the  savage  interpreta 
tion  of  biological  fact.  After  all,  I  was  merely 
forswearing  a  bad  habit,  foregoing  a  bad  frame  of 
mind.  And  I  repeat,  I  was  very  happy.  And  I 
add,  that  in  all  my  days,  measuring  them  with 
cold,  considerative  judgment,  this  was,  far  and 
away  beyond  all  other  periods,  the  happiest  pe 
riod  of  my  life. 

But  the  time  was  at  hand,  rimeless  and  rea 
sonless  so  far  as  I  can  see,  when  I  was  to  begin  to 
pay  for  my  score  of  years  of  dallying  with  John 
Barleycorn.  Occasionally  guests  journeyed  to 
the  ranch  and  remained  a  few  days.  Some  did 
not  drink.  But  to  those  who  did  drink,  the  ab 
sence  of  all  alcohol  on  the  ranch  was  a  hardship. 
I  could  not  violate  my  sense  of  hospitality  by 
compelling  them  to  endure  this  hardship.  I  or 
dered  in  a  stock  ...  for  my  guests. 

I  was  never  interested  enough  in  cocktails  to 
know  how  they  were  made.  So  I  got  a  barkeeper 
in  Oakland  to  make  them  in  bulk  and  ship  them 
to  me.  When  I  had  no  guests  I  didn't  drink. 
But  I  began  to  notice,  when  I  finished  my  morn 
ing's  work,  that  I  was  glad  if  there  were  a  guest, 
for  then  I  could  drink  a  cocktail  with  him.  \ 

267 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

Now  I  was  so  clean  of  alcohol  that  even  a  sin 
gle  cocktail  was  provocative  of  pitch.  A  single 
cocktail  would  glow  the  mind  and  tickle  a  laugh 
for  the  few  minutes  prior  to  sitting  down  to  table 
and  starting  the  delightful  process  of  eating.  On 
the  other  hand,  such  was  the  strength  of  my  stom 
ach,  of  my  alcoholic  resistance,  that  the  single 
cocktail  was  only  the  glimmer  of  a  glow,  the  faint 
est  tickle  of  a  laugh.  One  day  a  friend  frankly 
and  shamelessly  suggested  a  second  cocktail.  I 
drank  the  second  one  with  him.  The  glow  was 
appreciably  longer  and  warmer,  the  laughter 
deeper  and  more  resonant.  One  does  not  forget 
such  experiences.  Sometimes  I  almost  think  that 
it  was  because  I  was  so  very  happy  that  I  started 
on  my  real  drinking. 

I  remember  one  day  Charmian  and  I  took  a 
long  ride  over  the  mountains  on  our  horses.  The 
servants  had  been  dismissed  for  the  day,  and  we 
returned  late  at  night  to  a  jolly  chafing-dish  sup 
per.  Oh,  it  was  good  to  be  alive  that  night  while 
the  supper  was  preparing,  the  two  of  us  alone  in 
the  kitchen.  I,  personally,  was  at  the  top  of  life. 
Such  things  as  the  books  and  ultimate  truth  did 
not  exist.  My  body  was  gloriously  healthy,  and 
healthily  tired  from  the  long  ride.  It  had  been  a 

268 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

splendid  day.  The  night  was  splendid.  I  was 
with  the  woman  who  was  my  mate,  picnicking  in 
gleeful  abandon.  I  had  no  troubles.  The  bills 
were  all  paid,  and  a  surplus  of  money  was  rolling 
in  on  me.  The  future  ever  widened  before  me. 
And  right  there,  in  the  kitchen,  delicious  things 
bubbled  in  the  chafing  dish,  our  laughter  bubbled, 
and  my  stomach  was  keen  with  a  most  delicious 
edge  of  appetite. 

I  felt  so  good,  that  somehow,  somewhere,  in  me 
arose  an  insatiable  greed  to  feel  better.  I  was 
so  happy  that  I  wanted  to  pitch  my  happiness 
even  higher.  And  I  knew  the  way.  Ten  thou 
sand  contacts  with  John  Barleycorn  had  taught 
me.  Several  times  I  wandered  out  of  the  kitchen 
to  the  cocktail  bottle,  and  each  time  I  left  it  di 
minished  by  one  man's  size  cocktail.  The  result 
was  splendid.  I  was  n't  jingled,  I  was  n't  lighted 
up;  but  I  was  warmed,  I  glowed,  my  happiness 
was  pyramided.  Munificent  as  life  was  to  me,  I 
added  to  that  munificence.  It  was  a  great  hour 
— one  of  my  greatest.  But  I  paid  for  it,  long 
afterwards,  as  you  shall  see.  One  does  not  forget 
such  experiences,  and,  in  human  stupidity,  cannot 
be  brought  to  realize  that  there  is  no  immutable 
law  which  decrees  that  same  things  shall  produce 

269 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

same  results.  For  they  don't,  else  would  the 
thousandth  pipe  of  opium  be  provocative  of  simi 
lar  delights  to  the  first,  else  would  one  cocktail, 
instead  of  several,  produce  an  equivalent  glow 
after  a  year  of  cocktails. 

One  day,  just  before  I  ate  midday  dinner,  after 
my  morning's  writing  was  done,  when  I  had  no 
guest,  I  took  a  cocktail  by  myself.  Thereafter, 
when  there  were  no  guests,  I  took  this  daily  pre- 
dinner  cocktail.  And  right  there  John  Barley 
corn  had  me.  I  was  beginning  to  drink  regularly. 
I  was  beginning  to  drink  alone.  And  I  was  be 
ginning  to  drink,  not  for  hospitality's  sake,  not 
for  the  sake  of  the  taste,  but  for  the  effect  of  the 
drink. 

I  wanted  that  daily  pre-dinner  cocktail.  And 
it  never  crossed  my  mind  that  there  was  any  reason 
I  should  not  have  it.  I  paid  for  it.  I  could  pay 
for  a  thousand  cocktails  each  day  if  I  wanted. 
And  what  was  a  cocktail — one  cocktail — to  me 
who  on  so  many  occasions  for  so  many  years  had 
drunk  inordinate  quantities  of  stiffer  stuff  and  been 
unharmed  ? 

The  program  of  my  ranch  life  was  as  follows : 
Each  morning,  at  eight-thirty,  having  been  reading 
or  correcting  proofs  in  bed  since  four  or  five,  I 

270 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

went  to  my  desk.  Odds  and  ends  of  correspond 
ence  and  notes  occupied  me  till  nine,  and  at  nine 
sharp,  invariably,  I  began  my  writing.  By  eleven, 
sometimes  a  few  minutes  earlier  or  later,  my  thou 
sand  words  were  finished.  Another  half  hour  at 
cleaning  up  my  desk,  and  my  day's  work  was  done, 
so  that  at  eleven-thirty  I  got  into  a  hammock  un 
der  the  trees  with  my  mail  bag  and  the  morning 
newspaper.  At  twelve-thirty  I  ate  dinner  and  in 
the  afternoon  I  swam  and  rode. 

One  morning,  at  eleven-thirty,  before  I  got  into 
the  hammock,  I  took  a  cocktail.  I  repeated  this 
on  subsequent  mornings,  of  course,  taking  another 
cocktail  just  before  I  ate  at  twelve-thirty.  Soon 
I  found  myself,  seated  at  my  desk  in  the  midst  of 
my  thousand  words,  looking  forward  to  that 
eleven-thirty  cocktail. 

At  last,  now,  I  was  thoroughly  conscious  that  I 
desired  alcohol.  But  what  of  it*?  I  wasn't 
afraid  of  John  Barleycorn.  I  had  associated  with 
him  too  long.  I  was  wise  in  the  matter  of  drink. 
I  was  discreet.  Never  again  would  I  drink  to  ex 
cess.  I  knew  the  dangers  and  the  pitfalls  of  John 
Barleycorn,  the  various  ways  by  which  he  had  tried 
to  kill  me  in  the  past.  But  all  that  was  past,  long 
past.  Never  again  would  I  drink  myself  to  stupe- 

271 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

faction.  Never  again  would  I  get  drunk.  All  I 
wanted,  and  all  I  would  take,  was  just  enough  to 
glow  and  warm  me,  to  kick  geniality  alive  in  me 
and  put  laughter  in  my  throat  and  stir  the  maggots 
of  imagination  slightly  in  my  brain.  Oh,  I  was 
thoroughly  master  of  myself,  and  of  John  Barley 
corn. 


272 


CHAPTER  XXXI 

BUT  the  same  stimulus  to  the  human  organism 
will  not  continue  to  produce  the  same  re 
sponse.  By  and  by  I  discovered  there  was  no 
kick  at  all  in  one  cocktail.  One  cocktail  left  me 
dead.  There  was  no  glow,  no  laughter  tickle. 
Two  or  three  cocktails  were  required  to  produce 
the  original  effect  of  one.  And  I  wanted  that  ef 
fect.  I  drank  my  first  cocktail  at  eleven-thirty 
when  I  took  the  morning's  mail  into  the  hammock, 
and  I  drank  my  second  cocktail  an  hour  later  just 
before  I  ate.  I  got  into  the  habit  of  crawling  out 
of  the  hammock  ten  minutes  earlier  so  as  to  find 
time  and  decency  for  two  more  cocktails  ere  I  ate. 
This  became  schedule — three  cocktails  in  the  hour 
that  intervened  between  my  desk  and  dinner. 
And  these  were  two  of  the  deadliest  drinking  hab 
its:  regular  drinking  and  solitary  drinking. 

I  was  always  willing  to  drink  when  any  one 
was  around.  I  drank  by  myself  when  no  one  was 
around.  Then  I  made  another  step.  When  I 

273 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

had  for  guest  a  man  of  limited  drinking  caliber,  I 
took  two  drinks  to  his  one — one  drink  with  him, 
the  other  drink  without  him  and  of  which  he  did 
not  know.  I  stole  that  other  drink,  and,  worse 
than  that,  I  began  the  habit  of  drinking  alone 
when  there  was  a  guest,  a  man,  a  comrade,  with 
whom  I  could  have  drunk.  But  John  Barleycorn 
furnished  the  extenuation.  It  was  a  wrong  thing 
to  trip  a  guest  up  with  excess  of  hospitality  and 
get  him  drunk.  If  I  persuaded  him,  with  his  lim 
ited  caliber,  into  drinking  up  with  me,  I  'd  surely 
get  him  drunk.  What  could  I  do  but  steal  that 
every  second  drink,  or  else  deny  myself  the  kick 
equivalent  to  what  he  had  got  out  of  half  the  num 
ber? 

Please  remember,  as  I  recite  this  development 
of  my  drinking,  that  I  am  no  fool,  no  weakling. 
As  the  world  measures  such  things,  I  am  a  success 
— I  dare  say  a  success  more  conspicuous  than  the 
success  of  the  average  successful  man,  and  a  suc 
cess  that  required  a  pretty  fair  amount  of  brains 
and  will  power.  My  body  is  a  strong  body.  It 
has  survived  where  weaklings  died  like  flies.  And 
yet  these  things  which  I  am  relating  happened  to 
my  body  and  to  me.  I  am  a  fact.  My  drinking 
is  a  fact.  My  drinking  is  a  thing  that  has  hap- 

274 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

pened,  and  is  no  theory  nor  speculation ;  and,  as  I 
see  it,  it  but  lays  the  emphasis  on  the  power  of 
John  Barleycorn — a  savagery  that  we  still  permit 
to  exist,  a  deadly  institution  that  lingers  from  the 
mad  old  brutal  days  and  that  takes  its  heavy  toll 
of  youth  and  strength  and  high  spirit,  and  of  very 
much  of  all  of  the  best  we  breed. 

To  return.  After  a  boisterous  afternoon  in  the 
swimming  pool,  followed  by  a  glorious  ride  on 
horseback  over  the  mountains  or  up  or  down  the 
Valley  of  the  Moon,  I  found  myself  so  keyed  and 
splendid  that  I  desired  to  be  more  highly  keyed,  to 
feel  more  splendid.  I  knew  the  way.  A  cocktail 
before  supper  was  not  the  way.  Two  or  three,  at 
the  very  least,  was  what  was  needed.  I  took  them. 
Why  not*?  It  was  living.  I  had  always  dearly 
loved  to  live.  This  also  became  part  of  the  daily 
schedule. 

Then,  too,  I  was  perpetually  finding  excuses  for 
extra  cocktails.  It  might  be  the  assembling  of  a 
particularly  jolly  crowd;  a  touch  of  anger  against 
my  architect  or  against  a  thieving  stone-mason 
working  on  my  barn;  the  death  of  my  favorite 
horse  in  a  barbed  wire  fence ;  or  news  of  good  for 
tune  in  the  morning  mail  from  my  dealings  with 
editors  and  publishers.  It  was  immaterial  what 

275 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

the  excuse  might  be,  once  the  desire  had  germi 
nated  in  me.  The  thing  was :  I  wanted  alcohol. 
At  last,  after  a  score  and  more  of  years  of  dally 
ing  and  of  not  wanting,  now  I  wanted  it.  And 
my  strength  was  my  weakness.  I  required  two, 
three,  or  four  drinks  to  get  an  effect  commensurate 
with  the  effect  the  average  man  got  out  of  one 
drink. 

One  rule  I  observed.  I  never  took  a  drink  un 
til  my  day's  work  of  writing  a  thousand  words 
was  done.  And,  when  done,  the  Cocktails  reared 
a  wall  of  inhibition  in  my  brain  between  the 
day's  work  done  and  the  rest  of  the  day  of  fun 
to  come.  My  work  ceased  from  my  conscious 
ness.  No  thought  of  it  flickered  in  my  brain  till 
next  morning  at  nine  o'clock  when  I  sat  at  my 
desk  and  began  my  next  thousand  words.  This 
was  a  desirable  condition  of  mind  to  achieve.  I 
conserved  my  energy  by  means  of  this  alcoholic 
inhibition.  John  Barleycorn  was  not  so  black 
as  he  was  painted.  He  did  a  fellow  many  a  good 
turn,  and  this  was  one  of  them. 

And  I  turned  out  work  that  was  healthful,  and 
wholesome,  and  sincere.  It  was  never  pessimis 
tic.  The  way  to  life  I  had  learned  in  my  long 
sickness.  I  knew  the  illusions  were  right,  and  I 

276 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

exalted  the  illusions.  Oh,  I  still  turn  out  the 
same  sort  of  work,  stuff  that  is  clean,  alive,  opti 
mistic,  and  that  makes  toward  life.  And  I  am 
always  assured  by  the  critics  of  my  superabun 
dant  and  abounding  vitality,  and  of  how 
thoroughly  I  am  deluded  by  these  very  illusions  I 
exploit. 

And  while  on  this  digression,  let  me  repeat  the 
question  I  have  repeated  to  myself  ten  thousand 
times.  Why  did  I  drink?  What  need  was  there 
for  it*?  I  waS^roppy.  Was  it  because  I  was  too 
happy  ?  I  was  strong.  Was  it  because  I  was 
too  strong?  Did  I  possess  too  much  vitality? 
I  don't  know  why  I  drank.  I  cannot  answer, 
though  I  can  voice  the  suspicion  that  ever  grows 
in  me.  I  had  been  in  too  familiar  contact  with 
John  Barleycorn  through  too  many  years.  A 
left-handed  man,  by  long  practice,  can  become  a 
right-handed  man.  Had  I,  a  non-alcoholic,  by 
long  practice,  become  an  alcoholic? 

I  was  so  happy !  I  had  won  through  my  long 
sickness  to  the  satisfying  love  of  woman.  I 
earned  more  money  with  less  endeavor.  I  glowed 
with  health.  I  slept  like  a  babe.  I  continued 
to  write  successful  books,  and  in  sociological  con 
troversy  I  saw  my  opponents  confuted  with  the 

277 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

facts  of  the  times  that  daily  reared  new  buttresses 
to  my  intellectual  position.  From  day's  end  to 
day's  end  I  never  knew  sorrow,  disappointment, 
nor  regret.  I  was  happy  all  the  time.  Life  was 
one  unending  song.  I  begrudged  the  very  hours 
of  blessed  sleep  because  by  that  much  was  I 
robbed  of  the  joy  that  would  have  been  mine  had 
I  remained  awake.  And  yet  I  drank.  And  John 
Barleycorn,  all  unguessed  by  me,  was  setting  the 
stage  for  a  sickness  all  his  own. 

The  more  I  drank  the  more  I  was  required  to 
drink  to  get  an  equivalent  effect.  When  I  left 
the  Valley  of  the  Moon,  and  went  to  the  city  and 
dined  out,  a  cocktail  served  at  table  was  a  wan 
and  worthless  thing.  There  was  no  pre-dinner 
kick  in  it.  On  my  way  to  dinner  I  was  com 
pelled  to  accumulate  the  kick — two  cocktails, 
three,  and,  if  I  met  some  fellows,  four  or  five,  or 
six,  it  did  n't  matter  within  several.  Once,  I 
was  in  a  rush.  I  had  no  time  decently  to  accu 
mulate  the  several  drinks.  A  brilliant  idea  came 
to  me.  I  told  the  barkeeper  to  mix  me  a  double 
cocktail.  Thereafter,  whenever  I  was  in  a  hurry, 
I  ordered  double  cocktails.  It  saved  time. 

One  result  of  this  regular  heavy  drinking  was 
to  jade  me.  My  mind  grew  so  accustomed  to 

278 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

spring  and  liven  by  artificial  means,  that  without 
artificial  means  it  refused  to  spring  and  liven. 
Alcohol  become  more  and  more  imperative  in  or 
der  to  meet  people,  in  order  to  become  sociably  fit. 
I  had  to  get  the  kick  and  the  hit  of  the  stuff,  the 
crawl  of  the  maggots,  the  genial  brain  glow,  the 
laughter  tickle,  the  touch  of  devilishness  and  sting, 
the  smile  over- the  face  of  things,  ere  I  could  join 
my  fellows  and  make  one  with  them. 

Another  result  was  that  John  Barleycorn  was 
beginning  to  trip  me  up.  He  was  thrusting  my 
long  sickness  back  upon  me,  inveigling  me  into 
again  pursuing  Truth  and  snatching  her  veils 
away  from  her,  tricking  me  into  looking  reality 
stark  in  the  face.  But  this  came  on  gradually. 
My  thoughts  were  growing  harsh  again,  though 
they  grew  harsh  slowly. 

Sometimes  warnings  crossed  my  mind.  Where 
was  this  steady  drinking  leading?  But  trust 
John  Barleycorn  to  silence  such  questions. 
"Come  on  and  have  a  drink  and  I  '11  tell  you  all 
about  it,"  is  his  way.  And  it  works.  For  in 
stance,  the  following  is  a  case  in  point,  and  one 
which  John  Barleycorn  never  wearied  of  remind 
ing  me : 

I  had  suffered  an  accident  which  required  a 
279 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

ticklish  operation.  One  morning,  a  week  after 
I  had  come  off  the  table,  I  lay  on  my  hospital 
bed,  weak  and  weary.  The  sunburn  of  my  face, 
what  little  of  it  could  be  seen  through  a  scraggly 
growth  of  beard,  had  faded  to  a  sickly  yellow. 
My  doctor  stood  at  my  bedside  on  the  verge  of 
departure.  He  glared  disapprovingly  at  the  cig 
arette  I  was  smoking. 

"That 's  what  you  ought  to  quit,"  he  lectured. 
"It  will  get  you  in  the  end.  Look  at  me." 

I  looked.  He  was  about  my  own  age,  broad- 
shouldered,  deep-chested,  eyes  sparkling,  and 
ruddy-cheeked  with  health.  A  finer  specimen  of 
manhood  one  would  not  ask. 

"I  used  to  smoke,"  he  went  on.  "Cigars.  But 
I  gave  even  them  up.  And  look  at  me." 

The  man  was  arrogant,  and  rightly  arrogant, 
with  conscious  well-being.  And  within  a  month 
he  was  dead.  It  was  no  accident.  Half-a-dozen 
different  bugs  of  long  scientific  names  had  attacked 
and  destroyed  him.  The  complications  were  as 
tonishing  and  painful,  and  for  days  before  he 
died  the  screams  of  agony  of  that  splendid  man 
hood  could  be  heard  for  a  block  around.  He 
died  screaming. 

"You  see,"  said  John  Barleycorn.  "He  took 
280 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

care  of  himself.  He  even  stopped  smoking  ci 
gars.  And  that 's  what  he  got  for  it.  Pretty 
rotten,  eh4?  But  the  bugs  will  jump.  There's 
no  forefending  them.  Your  magnificent  doctor 
took  every  precaution,  yet  they  got  him.  When 
the  bug  jumps  you  can't  tell  where  it  will  land. 
It  may  be  you.  Look  what  he  missed.  Will 
you  miss  all  I  can  give  you,  only  to  have  a  bug 
jump  on  you  and  drag  you  down*?  There  is  no 
equity  in  life.  It 's  all  a  lottery.  But  I  put  the 
lying  smile  on  the  face  of  life  and  laugh  at  the 
facts.  Smile  with  me  and  laugh.  You  '11  get 
yours  in  the  end,  but  in  the  meantime  laugh. 
It 's  a  pretty  dark  world.  I  illuminate  it  for  you. 
It 's  a  rotten  world,  when  things  can  happen  such 
as  happened  to  your  doctor.  There  's  only  one 
thing  to  do;  take  another  drink  and  forget  it." 

And  of  course  I  took  another  drink  for  the  inhi 
bition  that  accompanied  it.  I  took  another  drink 
every  time  John  Barleycorn  reminded  me  of  what 
had  happened.  Yet  I  drank  rationally,  intelli 
gently.  I  saw  to  it  that  the  quality  of  the  stuff 
was  of  the  best.  I  sought  the  kick  and  the  inhi 
bition,  and  avoided  the  penalties  of  poor  quality 
and  of  drunkenness.  It  is  to  be  remarked,  in 
passing,  that  when  a  man  begins  to  drink  ration- 

281 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

ally  and  intelligently  he  betrays  a  grave  symptom 
of  how  far  along  the  road  he  has  traveled. 

But  I  continued  to  observe  my  rule  of  never 
taking  my  first  drink  of  the  day  until  the  last 
word  of  my  thousand  words  was  written.  On 
occasion,  however,  I  took  a  day's  vacation  from 
my  writing.  At  such  times,  since  it  was  no  viola 
tion  of  my  rule,  I  did  n't  mind  how  early  in  the 
day  I  took  that  first  drink.  And  persons  who 
have  never  been  through  the  drinking  game  won 
der  how  the  drinking  habit  grows! 


282 


CHAPTER  XXXII 

WHEN  the  Snark  sailed  on  her  long  cruise 
from  San  Francisco  there  was  nothing  to 
drink  on  board.  Or,  rather,  we  were  all  of  us 
unaware  that  there  was  anything  to  drink,  nor 
did  we  discover  it  for  many  a  month.  This  sail 
ing  with  a  "dry"  boat  was  malice  aforethought 
on  my  part.  I  had  played  John  Barleycorn  a 
trick.  And  it  showed  that  I  was  listening  ever 
so  slightly  to  the  faint  warnings  that  were  begin 
ning  to  arise  in  my  consciousness. 

Of  course,  I  veiled  the  situation  to  myself  and 
excused  myself  to  John  Barleycorn.  And  I  was 
very  scientific  about  it.  I  said  that  I  would  drink 
only  while  in  ports.  During  the  dry  sea-stretches 
my  system  would  be  cleansed  of  the  alcohol  that 
soaked  it,  so  that  when  I  reached  a  port  I  should 
be  in  shape  to  enjoy  John  Barleycorn  more 
thoroughly.  His  bite  would  be  sharper,  his  kick 
keener  and  more  delicious. 

We  were  twenty-seven  days  on  the  traverse 

283 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

between  San  Francisco  and  Honolulu.  After 
the  first  day  out,  the  thought  of  a  drink  never 
troubled  me.  This  I  take  to  show  how  intrinsic 
ally  I  am  not  an  alcoholic.  Sometimes,  during 
the  traverse,  looking  ahead  and  anticipating  the 
delightful  lanai  luncheons  and  dinners  of  Hawaii 
(I  had  been  there  a  couple  of  times  before),  I 
thought,  naturally,  of  the  drinks  that  would  pre 
cede  those  meals.  I  did  not  think  of  those  drinks 
with  any  yearning,  with  any  irk  at  the  length  of 
the  voyage.  I  merely  thought  they  would  be 
nice  and  jolly,  part  of  the  atmosphere  of  a  proper 
meal. 

Thus,  once  again  I  proved  to  my  complete  satis 
faction  that  I  was  John  Barleycorn's  master.  I 
could  drink  when  I  wanted,  refrain  when  I  wanted. 
Therefore  I  would  continue  to  drink  when  I 
wanted. 

Some  five  months  were  spent  in  the  various 
islands  of  the  Hawaiian  group.  Being  ashore,  I 
drank.  I  even  drank  a  bit  more  than  I  had  been 
accustomed  to  drink  in  California  prior  to  the 
voyage.  The  people  in  Hawaii  seemed  to  drink 
a  bit  more,  on  the  average,  than  the  people  in 
more  temperate  latitudes.  I  do  not  intend  the 
pun,  and  can  awkwardly  revise  the  statement  to 

284 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

"latitudes  more  distant  from  the  equator."  Yet 
Hawaii  is  only  sub-tropical.  The  deeper  I  got 
into  the  tropics  the  deeper  I  found  men  drank,  the 
deeper  I  drank  myself. 

From  Hawaii  we  sailed  for  the  Marquesas. 
The  traverse  occupied  sixty  days.  For  sixty  days 
we  never  raised  land,  a  sail,  nor  a  steamer  smoke. 
But  early  in  those  sixty  days,  the  cook,  giving  an 
overhauling  to  the  galley,  made  a  find.  Down  in 
the  bottom  of  a  deep  locker  he  found  a  dozen 
bottles  of  angelica  and  muscatel.  These  had 
come  down  from  the  kitchen  cellar  of  the  ranch 
along  with  the  home-preserved  fruits  and  jellies. 
Six  months  in  the  galley-heat  had  effected  some 
sort  of  a  change  in  the  thick  sweet  wine — brandied 
it,  I  imagine. 

I  took  a  taste.  Delicious!  And  thereafter, 
once  each  day,  at  twelve  o'clock,  after  our  obser 
vations  were  worked  up  and  the  Snark's  position 
charted,  I  drank  half  a  tumbler  of  the  stuff.  It 
had  a  rare  kick  to  it.  It  warmed  the  cockles  of 
my  geniality  and  put  a  fairer  face  on  the  truly 
fair  face  of  the  sea.  Each  morning,  below,  sweat 
ing  out  my  thousand  words,  I  found  myself  look 
ing  forward  to  that  twelve  o'clock  event  of  the 
day. 

285 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

The  trouble  was  I  had  to  share  the  stuff,  and 
the  length  of  the  traverse  was  doubtful.  I  re 
gretted  that  there  were  not  more  than  a  dozen 
bottles.  And  when  they  were  gone  I  even  re 
gretted  that  I  had  shared  any  of  it.  I  was  thirsty 
for  the  alcohol,  and  eager  to  arrive  in  the  Mar 
quesas. 

So  it  was  that  I  reached  the  Marquesas  the 
possessor  of  a  real,  man's  size  thirst.  And  in  the 
Marquesas  were  several  white  men,  a  lot  of  sickly 
natives,  much  magnificent  scenery,  plenty  of  trade 
rum,  an  immense  quantity  of  absinthe,  but  neither 
whisky  nor  gin.  The  trade  rum  scorched  the  skin 
of  one's  mouth.  I  know,  because  I  tried  it.  But 
I  had  ever  been  plastic,  and  I  accepted  the 
absinthe.  The  trouble  with  the  stuff  was  that  I 
had  to  take  such  inordinate  quantities  in  order  to 
feel  the  slightest  effect. 

From  the  Marquesas  I  sailed  with  sufficient 
absinthe  in  ballast  to  last  me  to  Tahiti,  where  I 
outfitted  with  Scotch  and  American  whisky,  and 
thereafter  there  were  no  dry  stretches  between 
ports.  But  please  do  not  misunderstand.  There 
was  no  drunkenness,  as  drunkenness  is  ordinarily 
understood — no  staggering  and  rolling  around,  no 
befuddlement  of  the  senses.  The  skilled  and 

286 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

seasoned  drinker,  with  a  strong  constitution,  never 
descends  to  anything  like  that.  He  drinks  to 
feel  good,  to  get  a  pleasant  jingle,  and  no  more 
than  that.  The  things  he  carefully  avoids  are 
the  nausea  of  over-drinking,  the  after-effect  of 
over-drinking,  the  helplessness  and  loss  of  pride 
of  over-drinking. 

What  the  skilled  and  seasoned  drinker  achieves 
is  a  discreet  and  canny  semi-intoxication.  And 
he  does  it  by  the  twelve-month  around  without 
any  apparent  penalty.  There  are  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  men  of  this  sort  in  the  United  States 
to-day,  in  clubs,  hotels,  and  in  their  own  homes — 
men  who  are  never  drunk,  and  who,  though  most 
of  them  will  indignantly  deny  it,  are  rarely  sober. 
And  all  of  them  fondly  believe,  as  I  fondly  be 
lieved,  that  they  are  beating  the  game. 

On  the  sea-stretches  I  was  fairly  abstemious ;  but 
ashore  I  drank  more.  I  seemed  to  need  more, 
anyway,  in  the  tropics.  This  is  a  common  ex 
perience,  for  the  excessive  consumption  of  alcohol 
in  the  tropics  by  white  men  is  a  notorious  fact. 
The  tropics  is  no  place  for  white-skinned  men. 
Their  skin-pigment  does  not  protect  them  against 
the  excessive  white  light  of  the  sun.  The  ultra 
violet  rays,  and  other  high-velocity  and  invisible 

287 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

rays  from  the  upper  end  of  the  spectrum,  rip  and 
tear  through  their  tissues,  just  as  the  X-ray  ripped 
and  tore  through  the  tissues  of  so  many  laboratory 
experimenters  before  they  learned  the  danger. 

White  men  in  the  tropics  undergo  radical 
changes  of  nature.  They  become  savage,  merci 
less.  They  commit  monstrous  acts  of  cruelty  that 
they  would  never  dream  of  committing  in  their 
original  temperate  climate.  They  become  nerv 
ous,  irritable,  and  less  moral.  And  they  drink  as 
they  never  drank  before.  Drinking  is  one  form 
of  the  many  forms  of  degeneration  that  set  in 
when  white  men  are  exposed  too  long  to  too  much 
white  light.  The  increase  of  alcoholic  consump 
tion  is  automatic.  The  tropics  is  no  place  for  a 
long  sojourn.  They  seem  doomed  to  die  any 
way,  and  the  heavy  drinking  expedites  the  process. 
They  don't  reason  about  it.  They  just  do  it. 

The  sun-sickness  got  me,  despite  the  fact  that 
I  had  been  in  the  tropics  only  a  couple  of  years. 
I  drank  heavily  during  this  time,  but  right  here  I 
wish  to  forestall  misunderstanding.  The  drink 
ing  was  not  the  cause  of  the  sickness,  nor  of  the 
abandonment  of  the  voyage.  I  was  strong  as 
a  bull,  and  for  many  months  I  fought  the  sun- 
sickness  that  was  ripping  and  tearing  my  surface 

288 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

and  nervous  tissues  to  pieces.  All  through  the 
New  Hebrides  and  the  Solomons  and  up  among 
the  atolls  on  the  Line,  during  this  period,  under  a 
tropic  sun,  rotten  with  malaria,  and  suffering 
from  a  few  minor  afflictions  such  as  Biblical  lep 
rosy  with  the  silvery  skin,  I  did  the  work  of  five 
men. 

To  navigate  a  vessel  through  the  reefs  and 
shoals  and  passages  and  unlighted  coasts  of  the 
coral  seas  is  a  man's  work  in  itself.  I  was  the 
only  navigator  on  board.  There  was  no  one  to 
check  me  up  on  the  working  out  of  my  observa 
tions,  nor  any  one  with  whom  I  could  advise  in 
the  ticklish  darkness  among  uncharted  reefs  and 
shoals.  And  I  stood  all  watches.  There  was  no 
seaman  on  board  whom  I  could  trust  to  stand  a 
mate's  watch.  I  was  mate  as  well  as  captain. 
Twenty- four  hours  a  day  were  the  watches  I  stood 
at  sea,  catching  cat-naps  when  I  might.  Third,  I 
was  doctor.  And  let  me  say  right  here  that  the 
doctor's  job  on  the  Snark  at  that  time  was  a  man's 
job.  All  on  board  suffered  from  malaria — the 
real,  tropical  malaria  that  can  kill  in  three 
months.  All  on  board  suffered  from  perforating 
ulcers  and  from  the  maddening  itch  of  ngari  ngari. 
A  Japanese  cook  went  insane  from  his  too  nu- 

289 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

merous  afflictions.  One  of  my  Polynesian 
sailors  lay  at  death's  door  with  blackwater  fever. 
Oh,  yes,  it  was  a  full  man's  job,  and  I  dosed  and 
doctored,  and  pulled  teeth,  and  dragged  my  pa 
tients  through  mild  little  things  like  ptomaine 
poisoning. 

Fourth,  I  was  a  writer.  I  sweated  out  my 
thousand  words  a  day,  every  day,  except  when 
the  shock  of  fever  smote  me,  or  a  couple  of  nasty 
squalls  smote  the  Snark,  in  the  morning.  Fifth, 
I  was  a  traveler  and  a  writer,  eager  to  see  things 
and  to  gather  material  into  my  note  books.  And, 
sixth,  I  was  master  and  owner  of  the  craft  that 
was  visiting  strange  places  where  visitors  are  rare 
and  where  visitors  are  made  much  of.  So  here 
I  had  to  hold  up  the  social  end,  entertain  on  board, 
be  entertained  ashore  by  planters,  traders,  gov 
ernors,  captains  of  war  vessels,  kinky-headed  can 
nibal  kings,  and  prime  ministers  sometimes  for 
tunate  enough  to  be  clad  in  cotton  under  shirts. 

Of  course  I  drank.  I  drank  with  my  guests 
and  hosts.  Also,  I  drank  by  myself.  Doing  the 
work  of  five  men,  I  thought,  entitled  me  to  drink. 
Alcohol  was  good  for  a  man  who  overworked.  I 
noted  its  effect  on  my  small  crew,  when,  breaking 
their  backs  and  hearts  at  heaving  up  anchor  in 

290 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

forty  fathoms,  they  knocked  off  gasping  and 
trembling  at  the  end  of  half  an  hour  and  had  new 
life  put  into  them  by  stiff  jolts  of  rum.  They 
caught  their  breaths,  wiped  their  mouths,  and 
went  to  it  again  with  a  will.  And  when  we  ca 
reened  the  Snark  and  had  to  work  in  the  water 
to  our  necks  between  shocks  of  fever,  I  noted  how 
raw  trade-rum  helped  the  work  along. 

And  here  again  we  come  to  another  side  of 
many-sided  John  Barleycorn.  On  the  face  of  it, 
he  gives  something  for  nothing.  Where  no 
strength  remains  he  finds  new  strength.  The 
wearied  one  rises  to  greater  effort.  For  the  time 
being  there  is  an  actual  accession  of  strength.  I 
remember  passing  coal  on  an  ocean  steamer 
through  eight  days  of  hell,  during  which  time  we 
coal -passers  were  kept  to  the  job  by  being  fed 
whisky.  We  toiled  half  drunk  all  the  time. 
And  without  the  whisky  we  could  not  have  passed 
the  coal. 

This  strength  John  Barleycorn  gives  is  not 
fictitious  strength.  It  is  real  strength.  But  it 
is  manufactured  out  of  the  sources  of  strength, 
and  it  must  ultimately  be  paid  for,  and  with  in 
terest.  But  what  weary  human  will  look  so  far 
ahead 9  He  takes  this  apparently  miraculous  ac- 

291 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

cession  of  strength  at  its  face  value.  And  many 
an  overworked  business  and  professional  man,  as 
well  as  a  harried  common  laborer,  has  traveled 
John  Barleycorn's  death-road  because  of  this  mis 
take. 


292 


CHAPTER  XXXIII 

I  WENT  to  Australia  to  go  into  hospital  and 
get  tinkered  up,  after  which  I  planned  to 
go  on  with  the  voyage.  And  during  the  long 
weeks  I  lay  in  hospital,  from  the  first  day  I  never 
missed  alcohol.  I  never  thought  about  it.  I 
knew  I  should  have  it  again  when  I  was  on  my 
feet.  But  when  I  regained  my  feet  I  was  not 
cured  of  my  major  afflictions.  Naaman's  silvery 
skin  was  still  mine.  The  mysterious  sun-sick 
ness,  which  the  experts  of  Australia  could  not 
fathom,  still  ripped  and  tore  my  tissues.  Ma 
laria  still  festered  in  me  and  put  me  on  my  back 
in  shivering  delirium  at  the  most  unexpected  mo 
ments,  among  other  things  compelling  me  to  can 
cel  a  double  lecture  tour  which  had  been  arranged. 
So  I  abandoned  the  Snark  voyage  and  sought  a 
cooler  climate.  The  day  I  came  out  of  hospital 
I  took  up  drinking  again  as  a  matter  of  course. 
I  drank  wine  at  meals.  I  drank  cocktails  before 
meals.  I  drank  Scotch  highballs  when  anybody 

293 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

I  chanced  to  be  with  was  drinking  them.  I  was 
so  thoroughly  the  master  of  John  Barleycorn,  I 
could  take  up  with  him  or  let  go  of  him  whenever 
I  pleased,  just  as  I  had  done  all  my  life. 

After  a  time,  for  cooler  climate,  I  went  down 
to  southernmost  Tasmania  in  forty-three  South. 
And  I  found  myself  in  a  place  where  there  was 
nothing  to  drink.  It  did  n't  mean  anything.  I 
did  n't  drink.  It  was  no  hardship.  I  soaked  in 
the  cool  air,  rode  horseback,  and  did  my  thousand 
words  a  day  save  when  the  fever  shock  came  in 
the  morning. 

And  for  fear  that  the  idea  may  still  lurk  in 
some  minds  that  my  preceding  years  of  drinking 
were  the  cause  of  my  disabilities,  I  here  point  out 
that  my  Japanese  cabin-boy,  Nakata,  still  with 
me,  was  rotten  with  fever,  as  was  Charmian,  who 
in  addition  was  in  the  slough  of  a  tropical  neuras 
thenia  that  required  several  years  of  temperate 
climate  to  cure,  and  that  neither  she  nor  Nakata 
drank  or  ever  had  drunk. 

When  I  returned  to  Hobart  Town,  where  drink 
was  obtainable,  I  drank  as  of  old.  The  same 
when  I  arrived  back  in  Australia.  On  the  con 
trary,  when  I  sailed  from  Australia  on  a  tramp 
steamer  commanded  by  an  abstemious  captain,  I 

294 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

took  no  drink  along,  and  had  no  drink  for  the 
forty-three  days'  passage.  Arrived  in  Ecuador, 
squarely  under  the  equatorial  sun,  where  the  hu 
mans  were  dying  of  yellow  fever,  smallpox,  and 
the  plague,  I  promptly  drank  again — every  drink 
of  every  sort  that  had  a  kick  in  it.  I  caught  none 
of  these  diseases.  Neither  did  Charmian  nor  Na- 
taka,  who  did  not  drink. 

Enamored  of  the  tropics,  despite  the  damage 
done  me,  I  stopped  in  various  places,  and  was  a 
long  while  getting  back  to  the  splendid,  temper 
ate  climate  of  California.  I  did  my  thousand 
words  a  day,  traveling  or  stopping  over,  suffered 
my  last  faint  fever  shock,  saw  my  silvery  skin  van 
ish  and  my  sun-torn  tissues  healthily  knit  again, 
and  drank  as  a  broad-shouldered,  chesty  man  may 
drink. 


295 


CHAPTER  XXXIV 

BACK  on  the  ranch,  in  the  Valley  of  the  Moon, 
I  resumed  my  steady  drinking.  My  pro 
gram  was  no  drink  in  the  morning;  first  drink- 
time  came  with  the  completion  of  my  thousand 
words.  Then,  between  that  and  the  midday 
meal,  were  drinks  numerous  enough  to  develop 
a  pleasant  jingle.  Again,  in  the  hour  preced 
ing  the  evening  meal,  I  developed  another  pleas 
ant  jingle.  Nobody  ever  saw  me  drunk,  for  the 
simple  reason  that  I  never  was  drunk.  But  I  did 
get  a  jingle  twice  each  day;  and  the  amount  of 
alcohol  I  consumed  every  day,  if  loosed  in  the 
system  of  one  unaccustomed  to  drink,  would  have 
put  such  a  one  on  his  back  and  out. 

It  was  the  old  proposition.  The  more  I  drank, 
the  more  I  was  compelled  to  drink  in  order  to  get 
an  effect.  The  time  came  when  cocktails  were 
inadequate.  I  had  neither  the  time  in  which  to 
drink  them  nor  the  space  to  accommodate  them. 
Whisky  had  a  more  powerful  jolt.  It  gave 

296 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

quicker  action  with  less  quantity.  Bourbon  or 
rye,  or  cunningly  aged  blends,  constituted  the 
pre-midday  drinking.  In  the  late  afternoon  it 
was  Scotch  and  soda. 

My  sleep,  always  excellent,  now  became  not 
quite  so  excellent.  I  had  been  accustomed  to 
read  myself  back  to  sleep  when  I  chanced  to  awake. 
But  now  this  began  to  fail  me.  When  I  had 
read  two  or  three  of  the  small  hours  away  and 
was  as  wide  awake  as  ever,  I  found  that  a  drink 
furnished  the  soporific  effect.  Sometimes  two  or 
three  drinks  were  required. 

So  short  a  period  of  sleep  then  intervened  be 
fore  early  morning  rising,  that  my  system  did  not 
have  time  to  work  off  the  alcohol.  As  a  result 
I  awoke  with  mouth  parched  and  dry,  with  a  slight 
heaviness  of  head,  and  with  a  mild  nervous  pal 
pitation  in  the  stomach.  In  fact  I  did  not  feel 
good.  I  was  suffering  from  the  morning  sickness 
of  the  steady,  heavy  drinker.  What  I  needed  was 
a  pick-me-up,  a  bracer.  Trust  John  Barleycorn, 
once  he  has  broken  down  a  man's  defenses !  So 
it  was  a  drink  before  breakfast  to  put  me  right 
for  breakfast — the  old  poison  of  the  snake  that 
has  bitten  one!  Another  custom,  begun  at  this 
time,  was  that  of  the  pitcher  of  water  by  the  bed- 

297 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

side  to  furnish  relief  to  my  scorched  and  sizzling 
membranes. 

I  achieved  a  condition  in  which  my  body  was 
never  free  from  alcohol.  Nor  did  I  permit  my 
self  to  be  away  from  alcohol.  If  I  traveled  to 
out-of-the-way  places,  I  declined  to  run  the  risk 
of  finding  them  dry.  I  took  a  quart,  or  several 
quarts,  along  in  my  grip.  In  the  past  I  had  been 
amazed  by  other  men  guilty  of  this  practice. 
Now  I  did  it  myself  unblushingly.  And  when  I 
got  out  with  the  fellows,  I  cast  all  rules  by  the 
board.  I  drank  when  they  drank,  what  they 
drank,  and  in  the  same  way  they  drank. 

I  was  carrying  a  beautiful  alcoholic  conflagra 
tion  around  with  me.  The  thing  fed  on  its  own 
heat  and  flamed  the  fiercer.  There  was  no  time, 
in  all  my  waking  time,  that  I  did  n't  want  a  drink. 
I  began  to  anticipate  the  completion  of  my  daily 
thousand  words  by  taking  a  drink  when  only  five 
hundred  words  were  written.  It  was  not  long 
until  I  prefaced  the  beginning  of  the  thousand 
words  with  a  drink. 

The  gravity  of  this  I  realized  too  well.  I  made 
new  rules.  Resolutely  I  would  refrain  from 
drinking  until  my  work  was  done.  But  a  new 
and  most  diabolical  complication  arose.  The 

298 


I  had  the  craving  at  last — and  it  was  mastering  me 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

work  refused  to  be  done  without  drinking.  It 
just  could  n't  be  done.  I  had  to  drink  in  order 
to  do  it.  I  was  beginning  to  fight  now.  I  had 
the  craving  at  last,  and  it  was  mastering  me.  I 
would  sit  at  my  desk  and  dally  with  pad  and  pen, 
but  words  refused  to  flow.  My  brain  could  not 
think  the  proper  thoughts  because  continually  it 
was  obsessed  with  the  one  thought  that  across  the 
room  in  the  liquor  cabinet  stood  John  Barleycorn. 
When,  in  despair,  I  took  my  drink,  at  once  my 
brain  loosened  up  and  began  to  roll  off  the  thou 
sand  words. 

In  my  town  house,  in  Oakland,  I  finished  the 
stock  of  liquor  and  wilfully  refused  to  purchase 
more.  It  was  no  use,  because,  unfortunately, 
there  remained  in  the  bottom  of  the  liquor  cabi 
net  a  case  of  beer.  In  vain  I  tried  to  write.  Now 
beer  is  a  poor  substitute  for  strong  waters;  be 
sides,  I  did  n't  like  beer;  yet  all  I  could  think  of 
was  that  beer  so  singularly  accessible  in  the  bot 
tom  of  the  cabinet.  Not  until  I  had  drunk  a  pint 
of  it  did  the  words  begin  to  reel  off,  and  the  thou 
sand  were  reeled  off  to  the  tune  of  numerous 
pints.  The  worst  of  it  was  that  the  beer  caused 
me  severe  heart-burn;  but  despite  the  discomfort 
I  soon  finished  the  case. 

301 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

The  liquor  cabinet  was  now  bare.  I  did  not 
replenish  it.  By  truly  heroic  perseverance,  I 
finally  forced  myself  to  write  the  daily  thousand 
words  without  the  spur  of  John  Barleycorn.  But 
all  the  time  I  wrote  I  was  keenly  aware  of  the 
craving  for  a  drink.  And  as  soon  as  the  morn 
ing's  work  was  done,  I  was  out  of  the  house  and 
away  down-town  to  get  my  first  drink.  Merciful 
goodness! — if  John  Barleycorn  could  get  such 
sway  over  me,  a  non-alcoholic,  what  must  be  the 
sufferings  of  the  true  alcoholic,  battling  against 
the  organic  demands  of  his  chemistry  while  those 
closest  to  him  sympathize  little,  understand  less, 
and  despise  and  deride  him ! 


302 


CHAPTER  XXXV 

BUT  the  freight  has  to  be  paid.  John  Barley 
corn  began  to  collect,  and  he  collected  not  so 
much  from  the  body  as  from  the  mind.  The  old 
long  sickness,  which  had  been  purely  an  intel 
lectual  sickness,  recrudesced.  The  old  ghosts, 
long  laid,  lifted  their  heads  again.  But  they 
were  different  and  more  deadly  ghosts.  The  old 
ghosts,  intellectual  in  their  inception,  had  been 
laid  by  a  sane  and  normal  logic.  But  now  they 
were  raised  by  the  White  Logic  of  John  Barley 
corn,  and  John  Barleycorn  never  lays  the  ghosts 
of  his  raising.  For  this  sickness  of  pessimism, 
caused  by  drink,  one  must  drink  further  in  quest 
of  the  anodyne  that  John  Barleycorn  promises 
but  never  delivers. 

How  to  describe  this  White  Logic  to  those  who 
have  never  experienced  it?  It  is  perhaps  better 
first  to  state  how  impossible  such  a  description  is. 
Take  Hasheesh  Land,  for  instance,  the  land  of 
enormous  extensions  of  time  and  space.  In  past 

303 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

years  I  have  made  two  memorable  journeys  into 
that  far  land.  My  adventures  there  are  seared 
in  sharpest  detail  on  my  brain.  Yet  I  have  tried 
vainly,  with  endless  words,  to  describe  any  tiny 
particular  phase  to  persons  who  have  not  traveled 
there. 

I  use  all  the  hyperbole  of  metaphor,  and  tell 
what  centuries  of  time  and  profounds  of  unthink 
able  agony  and  horror  can  obtain  in  each  inter 
val  of  all  the  intervals  between  the  notes  of  a 
quick  jig  played  quickly  on  the  piano.  I  talk 
for  an  hour,  elaborating  that  one  phase  of 
Hasheesh  Land,  and  at  the  end  I  have  told  them 
nothing.  And  when  I  cannot  tell  them  this  one 
thing  of  all  the  vastness  of  terrible  and  wonder 
ful  things,  I  know  I  have  failed  to  give  them  the 
slightest  concept  of  Hasheesh  Land. 

But,  let  me  talk  with  some  other  traveler  in 
that  weird  region,  and  at  once  am  I  understood. 
A  phrase,  a  word,  conveys  instantly  to  his  mind 
what  hours  of  words  and  phrases  could  not  con 
vey  to  the  mind  of  the  non-traveler.  So  it  is 
with  John  Barleycorn's  realm  where  the  White 
Logic  reigns.  To  those  untraveled  there,  the 
traveler's  account  must  always  seem  unintelligible 
and  fantastic.  At  the  best,  I  may  only  beg  of  the 

304 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

untraveled  ones  to  strive  to  take  on  faith  the  nar 
rative  I  shall  relate. 

For  there  are  fatal  intuitions  of  truth  that  re 
side  in  alcohol.  Philip  sober  vouches  for  Philip 
drunk  in  this  matter.  There  seem  to  be  various 
orders  of  truth  in  this  world.  Some  sorts  of 
truth  are  truer  than  others.  Some  sorts  of  truth 
are  lies,  and  these  sorts  are  the  very  ones  that 
have  the  greatest  use-value  to  life  that  desires  to 
realize  and  live.  At  once,  O  untraveled  reader, 
you  see  how  lunatic  and  blasphemous  is  the  realm 
I  am  trying  to  describe  to  you  in  the  language  of 
John  Barleycorn's  tribe.  It  is  not  the  language 
of  your  tribe,  all  of  whose  members  resolutely 
shun  the  roads  that  lead  to  death  and  tread  only 
the  roads  that  lead  to  life.  For  there  are  roads 
and  roads,  and  of  truth  there  are  orders  and  or 
ders.  But  have  patience.  At  least,  through 
what  seems  no  more  than  verbal  yammerings,  you 
may,  perchance,  glimpse  faint  far  vistas  of  other 
lands  and  tribes. 

Alcohol  tells  truth,  but  its  truth  is  not  normal. 
What  is  normal  is  healthful.  What  is  health 
ful  tends  toward  life.  Normal  truth  is  a  differ 
ent  order,  and  a  lesser  order,  of  truth.  Take  a 
dray  horse.  Through  all  the  vicissitudes  of  its 

305 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

life,  from  first  to  last,  somehow,  in  unguessably 
dim  ways,  it  must  believe  that  life  is  good;  that 
the  drudgery  in  harness  is  good;  that  death,  no 
matter  how  blind-instinctively  apprehended,  is  a 
dread  giant;  that  life  is  beneficent  and  worth 
while;  that,  in  the  end,  with  fading  life,  it  will 
not  be  knocked  about  and  beaten  and  urged  be 
yond  its  sprained  and  spavined  best;  that  old  age, 
even,  is  decent,  dignified,  and  valuable,  though 
old  age  means  a  ribby  scarecrow  in  a  hawker's 
cart,  stumbling  a  step  to  every  blow,  stumbling 
dizzily  on  through  merciless  servitude  and  slow 
disintegration  to  the  end — the  end,  the  apportion 
ment  of  its  parts  (of  its  subtle  flesh,  its  pink  and 
springy  bone,  its  juices  and  ferments,  and  all  the 
sensateness  that  informed  it),  to  the  chicken  farm, 
the  hide-house,  the  glue-rendering  works,  and  the 
bone-meal  fertilizer  factory.  To  the  last  stumble 
of  its  stumbling  end  this  dray  horse  must  abide 
by  the  mandates  of  the  lesser  truth  that  is  the 
truth  of  life  and  that  makes  life  possible  to  per 
sist. 

This  dray  horse,  like  all  other  horses,  like  all 
other  animals  including  man,  is  life-blinded  and 
sense-struck.  It  will  live,  no  matter  what  the 
price.  The  game  of  life  is  good,  though  all  of 

306 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

life  may  be  hurt,  and  though  all  lives  lose  the 
game  in  the  end.  This  is  the  order  of  truth  that 
obtains,  not  for  the  universe,  but  for  the  live 
things  in  it  if  they  for  a  little  space  will  endure 
ere  they  pass.  This  order  of  truth,  no  matter 
how  erroneous  it  may  be,  is  the  sane  and  normal 
order  of  truth,  the  rational  order  of  truth  that 
life  must  believe  in  order,  to  live. 

To  man,  alone  among  the  animals,  has  been 
given  the  awful  privilege  of  reason.  Man,  with 
his  brain,  can  penetrate  the  intoxicating  show  of 
things  and  look  upon  a  universe  brazen  with  in 
difference  toward  him  and  his  dreams.  He  can 
do  this,  but  it  is  not  well  for  him  to  do  it.  To 
live,  and  live  abundantly,  to  sting  with  life,  to  be 
alive  (which  is  to  be  what  he  is),  it  is  good  that 
man  be  life-blinded  and  sense-struck.  What  is 
good  is  true.  And  this  is  the  order  of  truth, 
lesser  though  it  be,  that  man  must  know  and 
guide  his  actions  by,  with  unswerving  certitude 
that  it  is  absolute  truth  and  that  in  the  universe 
no  other  order  of  truth  can  obtain.  It  is  good 
that  man  should  accept  at  face  value  the  cheats 
of  sense  and  snares  of  flesh,  and  through  the  fogs 
of  sentiency  pursue  the  lures  and  lies  of  passion. 
It  is  good  that  he  shall  see  neither  shadows  nor 

307 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

futilities,  nor  be  appalled  by  his  lusts  and  ra 
pacities. 

And  man  does  this.  Countless  men  have 
glimpsed  that  other  and  truer  order  of  truth  and 
recoiled  from  it.  Countless  men  have  passed 
through  the  long  sickness  and  lived  to  tell  of  it 
and  deliberately  to  forget  it  to  the  end  of  their 
days.  They  lived.  They  realized  life,  for  life  is 
what  they  were.  They  did  right. 

And  now  comes  John  Barleycorn  with  the  curse 
he  lays  upon  the  imaginative  man  who  is  lusty 
with  life  and  desire  to  live,  John  Barleycorn 
sends  his  White  Logic,  the  argent  messenger  of 
truth  beyond  truth,  the  antithesis  of  life,  cruel 
and  bleak  as  interstellar  space,  pulseless  and 
frozen  as  absolute  zero,  dazzling  with  the  frost 
of  irrefragable  logic  and  unforgettable  fact.  John 
Barleycorn  will  not  let  the  dreamer  dream,  the 
liver  live.  He  destroys  birth  and  death,  and  dis 
sipates  to  mist  the  paradox  of  being,  until  his 
victim  cries  out,  as  in  "The  City  of  Dreadful 
Night" :  "Our  life  's  a  cheat,  our  death  a  black 
abyss."  And  the  feet  of  the  victim  of  such  dread 
ful  intimacy  take  hold  of  the  way  of  death. 


CHAPTER  XXXVI 

BACK  to  personal  experiences  and  the  effects  in 
the  past  of  John  Barleycorn's  White  Logic 
on  me.  On  my  lovely  ranch  in  the  Valley  of  the 
Moon,  brain-soaked  with  many  months  of  alco 
hol,  I  am  oppressed  by  the  cosmic  sadness  that 
has  always  been  the  heritage  of  man.  In  vain 
do  I  ask  myself  why  I  should  be  sad.  My  nights 
are  warm.  My  roof  does  not  leak.  I  have  food 
galore  for  all  the  caprices  of  appetite.  Every 
creature-comfort  is  mine.  In  my  body  are  no 
aches  nor  pains.  The  good  old  flesh-machine  is 
running  smoothly  on.  Neither  brain  nor  muscle 
is  overworked.  I  have  land,  money,  power,  rec 
ognition  from  the  world,  a  consciousness  that  I 
do  my  meed  of  good  in  serving  others,  a  mate 
whom  I  love,  children  that  are  of  my  own  fond 
flesh.  I  have  done,  and  am  doing,  what  a  good 
citizen  of  the  world  should  do.  I  have  built 
houses,  many  houses,  and  tilled  many  a  hundred 
acres.  And  as  for  trees,  have  I  not  planted  a 

309 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

hundred  thousand4?  Everywhere,  from  any  win 
dow  of  my  house,  I  can  gaze  forth  upon  these 
trees  of  my  planting,  standing  valiantly  erect  and 
aspiring  toward  the  sun. 

My  life  has  indeed  fallen  in  pleasant  places. 
Not  a  hundred  men  in  a  million  have  been  so 
lucky  as  I.  Yet,  with  all  this  vast  good  fortune, 
am  I  sad.  And  I  am  sad  because  John  Barley 
corn  is  with  me.  And  John  Barleycorn  is  with 
me  because  I  was  born  in  what  future  ages  will 
call  the  dark  ages  before  the  ages  of  rational  civ 
ilization.  John  Barleycorn  is  with  me  because 
in  all  the  unwitting  days  of  my  youth  John  Bar 
leycorn  was  accessible,  calling  to  me  and  invit 
ing  me  on  every  corner  and  on  every  street  be 
tween  the  corners.  The  pseudo-civilization  into 
which  I  was  born  permitted  everywhere  licensed 
shops  for  the  sale  of  soul-poison.  The  system  of 
life  was  so  organized  that  I  (and  millions  like 
me)  was  lured  and  drawn  and  driven  to  the 
poison  shops. 

Wander  with  me  through  one  mood  of  the 
myriad  of  moods  of  sadness  into  which  one  is 
plunged  by  John  Barleycorn.  I  ride  out  over 
my  beautiful  ranch.  Between  my  legs  is  a 
beautiful  horse.  The  air  is  wine.  The  grapes 

310 


And  yet,  with  jaundiced  eye  I  gaze  upon  all  the  beauty  and  wonder  about  me 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

on  a  score  of  rolling  hills  are  red  with  autumn 
flame.  Across  Sonoma  Mountain  wisps  of  sea 
fog  are  stealing.  The  afternoon  sun  smoulders 
in  the  drowsy  sky.  I  have  everything  to  make 
me  glad  I  am  alive.  I  am  filled  with  dreams  and 
mysteries.  I  am  all  sun  and  air  and  sparkle.  I 
am  vitalized,  organic.  I  move,  I  have  the  power 
of  movement,  I  command  movement  of  the  live 
thing  I  bestride.  I  am  possessed  with  the  pomps 
of  being,  and  know  proud  passions  and  inspira 
tions.  I  have  ten  thousand  august  connotations. 
I  am  a  king  in  the  kingdom  of  sense,  and  trample 
the  face  of  the  uncomplaining  dust.  .  .  . 

And  yet,  with  jaundiced  eye  I  gaze  upon  all 
the  beauty  and  wonder  about  me,  and  with  jaun 
diced  brain  consider  the  pitiful  figure  I  cut  in  this 
world  that  endured  so  long  without  me  and  that 
will  again  endure  without  me.  I  remember  the 
men  who  broke  their  hearts  and  their  backs  over 
this  stubborn  soil  that  now  belongs  to  me.  As 
if  anything  imperishable  could  belong  to  the  per 
ishable!  These  men  passed.  I,  too,  shall  pass. 
These  men  toiled,  and  cleared,  and  planted,  gazed 
with  aching  eyes,  while  they  rested  their  labor- 
stiffened  bodies,  on  these  same  sunrises  and  sun 
sets,  at  the  autumn  glory  of  the  grape,  and  at  the 

313 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

fog-wisps  stealing  across  the  mountain.  And 
they  are  gone.  And  I  know  that  I,  too,  shall 
some  day,  and  soon,  be  gone. 

Gone?  I  am  going  now.  In  my  jaw  are  cun 
ning  artifices  of  the  dentists  which  replace  the 
parts  of  me  already  gone.  Never  again  will  I 
have  the  thumbs  of  my  youth.  Old  fights  and 
wrestlings  have  injured  them  irreparably.  That 
punch  on  the  head  of  a  man  whose  very  name  is 
forgotten,  settled  this  thumb  finally  and  forever. 
A  slip-grip  at  catch-as-catch-can  did  for  the 
other.  My  lean  runner's  stomach  has  passed  into 
the  limbo  of  memory.  The  joints  of  the  legs 
that  bear  me  up  are  not  so  adequate  as  they  once 
were,  when,  in  wild  nights  and  days  of  toil  and 
frolic,  I  strained  and  snapped  and  ruptured  them. 
Never  again  can  I  swing  dizzily  aloft  and  trust 
all  the  proud  quick  that  is  I  to  a  single  rope- 
clutch  in  the  driving  blackness  of  storm.  Never 
again  can  I  run  with  the  sled-dogs  along  the  end 
less  miles  of  Arctic  trail. 

I  am  aware  that  within  this  disintegrating  body 
which  has  been  dying  since  I  was  born  I  carry  a 
skeleton;  that  under  the  rind  of  flesh  which  is 
called  my  face  is  a  bony,  noseless  death's  head. 
All  of  which  does  not  shudder  me.  To  be  afraid 

3H 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

is  to  be  healthy.  Fear  of  death  makes  for  life. 
But  the  curse  of  the  White  Logic  is  that  it  does  not 
make  one  afraid.  The  world-sickness  of  the 
White  Logic  makes  one  grin  jocosely  into  the  face 
of  the  Noseless  One  and  to  sneer  at  all  the  phan 
tasmagoria  of  living. 

I  look  about  me  as  I  ride,  and  on  every  hand  I 
see  the  merciless  and  infinite  waste  of  natural  se 
lection.  The  White  Logic  insists  upon  opening 
the  long-closed  books,  and  by  paragraph  and 
chapter  states  the  beauty  and  wonder  I  behold 
in  terms  of  futility  and  dust.  About  me  is  mur 
mur  and  hum,  and  I  know  it  for  the  gnat-swarm 
of  the  living,  piping  for  a  little  space  its  thin 
plaint  of  troubled  air. 

I  return  across  the  ranch.  Twilight  is  on,  and 
the  hunting-animals  are  out.  I  watch  the  piteous 
tragic  play  of  life  feeding  on  life.  Here  is  no 
morality.  Only  in  man  is  morality,  and  man 
created  it — a  code  of  action  that  makes  toward 
living  and  that  is  of  the  lesser  order  of  truth. 
Yet  all  this  I  knew  before,  in  the  weary  days  of 
my  long  sickness.  These  were  the  greater  truths 
that  I  so  successfully  schooled  myself  to  forget; 
the  truths  that  were  so  serious  that  I  refused  to 
take  them  seriously,  and  played  with  gently,  O 

315 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

so  gently,  as  sleeping  dogs  at  the  back  of  con 
sciousness  which  I  did  not  care  to  waken.  I  did 
but  stir  them,  and  let  them  lie.  I  was  too  wise, 
too  wicked  wise,  to  wake  them.  But  now  White 
Logic  willy  nilly  wakes  them  for  me,  for  White 
Logic,  most  valiant,  is  unafraid  of  all  the  mon 
sters  of  the  earthly  dream. 

"Let  the  doctors  of  all  the  schools  condemn 
me,"  White  Logic  whispers  as  I  ride  along. 
"What  of  it?  I  am  truth.  You  know  it.  You 
cannot  combat  me.  They  say  I  make  for  death. 
What  of  it?  It  is  truth.  Life  lies  in  order  to 
live.  Life  is  a  perpetual  lie-telling  process. 
Life  is  a  mad  dance  in  the  domain  of  flux,  wherein 
appearances  in  mighty  tides  ebb  and  flow,  chained 
to  the  wheels  of  moons  beyond  our  ken.  Ap 
pearances  are  ghosts.  Life  is  ghost  land,  where 
appearances  change,  transfuse,  permeate  each  the 
other  and  all  the  others,  that  are,  that  are  not, 
that  always  flicker,  fade,  and  pass,  only  to  come 
again  as  new  appearances,  as  other  appearances. 
You  are  such  an  appearance,  composed  of  count 
less  appearances  out  of  the  past.  All  an  appear 
ance  can  know  is  mirage.  You  know  mirages 
of  desire.  These  very  mirages  are  the  unthink 
able  and  incalculable  congeries  of  appearances 

316 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

that  crowd  in  upon  you  and  form  you  out  of  the 
past,  and  that  sweep  you  on  to  dissemination 
into  other  unthinkable  and  incalculable  congeries 
of  appearances  to  people  the  ghost  land  of  the 
future.  Life  is  apparitional,  and  passes.  You 
are  an  apparition.  Through  all  the  apparitions 
that  preceded  you  and  that  compose  the  parts  of 
you,  you  rose  gibbering  from  the  evolutionary 
mire,  and  gibbering  you  will  pass  on,  interfusing, 
permeating  the  procession  of  apparitions  that  will 
succeed  you." 

And  of  course  it  is  all  unanswerable,  and  as  I 
ride  along  through  the  evening  shadows  I  sneer 
at  that  Great  Fetish  which  Compte  called  the 
world.  And  I  remember  what  another  pessimist 
of  sentiency  has  uttered:  "Transient  are  all. 
They,  being  born,  must  die;  and,  being  dead,  are 
glad  to  be  at  rest." 

But  here  through  the  dusk  comes  one  who  is 
not  glad  to  be  at  rest.  He  is  a  workman  on  the 
ranch,  an  old  man,  an  immigrant  Italian.  He 
takes  his  hat  off  to  me  in  all  servility,  because, 
forsooth,  I  am  to  him  a  lord  of  life.  I  am  food 
to  him,  and  shelter,  and  existence.  He  has  toiled 
like  a  beast  all  his  days,  and  lived  less  comfort 
ably  than  my  horses  in  their  deep-strawed  stalls. 

317 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

He  is  labor-crippled.  He  shambles  as  he  walks. 
One  shoulder  is  twisted  higher  than  the  other. 
His  hands  are  gnarled  claws,  repulsive,  horrible. 
As  an  apparition  he  is  a  pretty  miserable  speci 
men.  His  brain  is  as  stupid  as  his  body  is 
ugly. 

"His  brain  is  so  stupid  that  he  does  not  know 
he  is  an  apparition,"  the  White  Logic  chuckles 
to  me.  "He  is  sense-drunk.  He  is  the  slave  of 
the  dream  of  life.  His  brain  is  filled  with  su- 
perrational  sanctions  and  obsessions.  He  be 
lieves  in  a  transcendent  over-world.  He  has  lis 
tened  to  the  vagaries  of  the  prophets,  who  have 
blown  for  him  the  sumptuous  bubble  of  Paradise. 
He  feels  inarticulate  affinities  with  self-conjured 
non-realities.  He  sees  penumbral  visions  of  him 
self  titubating  fantastically  through  days  and 
nights  of  space  and  stars.  Beyond  the  shadow  of 
any  doubt  he  is  convinced  that  the  universe  was 
made  for  him,  and  that  it  is  his  destiny  to  live 
forever  in  the  immaterial  and  supersensuous 
realms  he  and  his  kind  have  builded  of  the  stuff 
of  semblance  and  deception. 

"But  you,  who  have  opened  the  books  and  who 
share  my  awful  confidence — you  know  him  for 
what  he  is,  brother  to  you  and  the  dust,  a  cosmic 

318 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

joke,  a  sport  of  chemistry,  a  garmented  beast 
that  arose  out  of  the  ruck  of  screaming  beastli 
ness  by  virtue  and  accident  of  two  opposable 
great  toes.  He  is  brother  as  well  to  the  gorilla 
and  the  chimpanzee.  He  thumps  his  chest  in 
anger,  and  roars  and  quivers  with  cataleptic  fe 
rocity.  He  knows  monstrous,  atavistic  prompt 
ings,  and  he  is  composed  of  all  manner  of  shreds 
of  abysmal  and  forgotten  instincts." 

"Yet  he  dreams  he  is  immortal,"  I  argue  feebly. 
"It  is  vastly  wonderful  for  so  stupid  a  clod  to 
bestride  the  shoulders  of  time  and  ride  the  eter 
nities." 

"Pah !"  is  the  retort.  "Would  you  then  shut 
the  books  and  exchange  places  with  this  thing 
that  is  only  an  appetite  and  a  desire,  a  marionette 
of  the  belly  and  the  loins'?" 

"To  be  stupid  is  to  be  happy,"  I  contend. 

"Then  your  ideal  of  happiness  is  a  jelly-like 
organism  floating  in  a  tideless,  tepid,  twilight 
sea,  eh?" 

— Oh,  the  victim  cannot  combat  John  Barley 
corn! 

"One  step  removed  from  the  annihilating  bliss 
of  Buddha's  Nirvana,"  the  White  Logic  adds. 
"Oh,  well,  here  's  the  house.  Cheer  up  and  take 

319 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

a  drink.  We  know,  we  illuminated,  you  and  I, 
all  the  folly  and  the  farce." 

And  in  my  book-walled  den,  the  mausoleum  of 
the  thoughts  of  men,  I  take  my  drink,  and  other 
drinks,  and  roust  out  the  sleeping  dogs  from  the  re 
cesses  of  my  brain  and  halloo  them  on  over  the 
walls  of  prejudice  and  law  and  through  all  the 
cunning  labyrinths  of  superstition  and  belief. 

"Drink,"  says  the  White  Logic.  "The  Greeks 
believed  that  the  gods  gave  them  wine  so  that 
they  might  forget  the  miserableness  of  existence. 
And  remember  what  Heine  said." 

Well  do  I  remember  that  flaming  Jew's  "With 
the  last  breath  all  is  done:  joy,  love,  sorrow, 
macaroni,  the  theater,  lime-trees,  raspberry  drops, 
the  power  of  human  relations,  gossip,  the  barking 
of  dogs,  champagne." 

"Your  clear  white  light  is  sickness,"  I  tell  the 
White  Logic.  "You  lie." 

"By  telling  too  strong  a  truth,"  he  quips  back. 

"Alas,  yes,  so  topsyturvy  is  existence,"  I  ac 
knowledge  sadly. 

"Ah,  well,  Liu  Ling  was  wiser  than  you,"  the 
White  Logic  girds.  "You  remember  him*?" 

I  nod  my  head — Liu  Ling,  a  hard  drinker,  one 
of  the  group  of  bibulous  poets  who  called  them- 

320 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

selves  the  Seven  Sages  of  the  Bamboo  Grove  and 
who  lived  in  China  many  an  ancient  century  ago. 

"It  was  Liu  Ling,"  prompts  the  White  Logic, 
"who  declared  that  to  a  drunken  man  the  affairs 
of  this  world  appear  but  as  so  much  duckweed 
on  a  river.  Very  well.  Have  another  Scotch, 
and  let  semblance  and  deception  become  duck 
weed  on  a  river." 

And  while  I  pour  and  sip  my  Scotch,  I  remem 
ber  another  Chinese  philosopher,  Chuang  Tzu, 
who,  four  centuries  before  Christ,  challenged  this 
dreamland  of  the  world,  saying:  "How  then  do 
I  know  but  that  the  dead  repent  of  having  pre 
viously  clung  to  life?  Those  who  dream  of  the 
banquet,  wake  to  lamentation  and  sorrow.  Those 
who  dream  of  lamentation  and  sorrow,  wake  to 
join  the  hunt.  While  they  dream,  they  do  not 
know  that  they  dream.  Some  will  even  interpret 
the  very  dream  they  are  dreaming ;  and  only  when 
they  awake  do  they  know  it  was  a  dream.  .  .  . 
Fools  think  they  are  awake  now,  and  flatter  them 
selves  they  know  if  they  are  really  princes  or 
peasants.  Confucius  and  you  are  both  dreams; 
and  I  who  say  you  are  dreams — I  am  but  a  dream 
myself. 

"Once  upon  a  time,  I,  Chuang  Tzu,  dreamt  I 
321 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

was  a  butterfly,  fluttering  hither  and  thither,  to  all 
intents  and  purposes  a  butterfly.  I  was  conscious 
only  of  following  my  fancies  as  a  butterfly,  and 
was  unconscious  of  my  individuality  as  a  man. 
Suddenly,  I  awaked,  and  there  I  lay,  myself 
again.  Now  I  do  not  know  whether  I  was  then 
a  man  dreaming  I  was  a  butterfly,  or  whether  I 
am  now  a  butterfly  dreaming  I  am  a  man." 


CHAPTER  XXXVII 

says  the  White  Logic,  "and  forget 
these  Asian  dreamers  of  old  time.  Fill 
your  glass  and  let  us  look  at  the  parchments  of 
the  dreamers  of  yesterday  who  dreamed  their 
dreams  on  your  own  warm  hills." 

I  pore  over  the  abstract  of  title  of  the  vineyard 
called  Tokay  on  the  rancho  called  Petaluma.  It 
is  a  sad  long  list  of  the  names  of  men,  begin 
ning  with  Manuel  Michel toreno,  one  time  Mexi 
can  "Governor,  Commander-in-Chief,  and  In 
spector  of  the  Department  of  the  Californias," 
who  deeded  ten  square  leagues  of  stolen  Indian 
land  to  Colonel  Don  Mariano  Guadalupe  Vallejo 
for  services  rendered  his  country  and  for  moneys 
paid  by  him  for  ten  years  to  his  soldiers. 

Immediately  this  musty  record  of  man's  land- 
lust  assumes  the  formidableness  of  a  battle — the 
quick  struggling  with  the  dust.  There  are  deeds 
of  trust,  mortgages,  certificates  of  release,  trans 
fers,  judgments,  foreclosures,  writs  of  attachment, 

323 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

orders  of  sale,  tax  liens,  petitions  for  letters  of 
administration,  and  decrees  of  distribution.  It  is 
like  a  monster  ever  unsubdued,  this  stubborn  land 
that  drowses  in  this  Indian  summer  weather  and 
that  survives  them  all,  the  men  who  scratched  its 
surface  and  passed. 

Who  was  this  James  King  of  William,  so  curi 
ously  named4?  The  oldest  surviving  settler  in  the 
Valley  of  the  Moon  knows  him  not.  Yet  only 
sixty  years  ago  he  loaned  Mariano  G.  Vallejo 
eighteen  thousand  dollars  on  security  of  certain 
lands  including  the  vineyard  yet  to  be  and  to  be 
called  Tokay.  Whence  came  Peter  O'Connor, 
and  whither  vanished,  after  writing  his  little 
name  of  a  day  on  the  woodland  that  was  to  be 
come  a  vineyard*?  Appears  Louis  Csomortan- 
yi,  a  name  to  conjure  with.  He  lasts  through 
several  pages  of  this  record  of  the  enduring 
soil. 

Comes  old  American  stock,  thirsting  across  the 
Great  American  Desert,  mule-backing  across  the 
Isthmus,  wind-jamming  around  the  Horn,  to 
write  brief  and  forgotten  names  where  ten 
thousand  generations  of  wild  Indians  are  equally 
forgotten — names  like  Halleck,  Hastings,  Swett, 
Tait,  Denman,  Tracy,  Grimwood,  Carlton, 

324 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

Temple.  There  are  no  names  like  those  to-day 
in  the  Valley  of  the  Moon. 

The  names  begin  to  appear  fast  and  furiously, 
flashing  from  legal  page  to  legal  page  and  in  a 
flash  vanishing.  But  ever  the  persistent  soil  re 
mains  for  others  to  scrawl  themselves  across. 
Come  the  names  of  men  of  whom  I  have  vaguely 
heard  but  whom  I  have  never  known.  Kohler 
and  Frohling — who  built  the  great  stone  winery 
on  the  vineyard  called  Tokay,  but  who  built  upon 
a  hill  up  which  other  vinyardists  refused  to  haul 
their  grapes.  So  Kohler  and  Frohling  lost  the 
land;  the  earthquake  of  1906  threw  down  the 
winery;  and  I  now  live  in  its  ruins. 

La  Motte — he  broke  the  soil,  planted  vines  and 
orchards,  instituted  commercial  fish-culture,  built 
a  mansion  renowned  in  its  day,  was  defeated  by 
the  soil,  and  passed.  And  my  name  of  a  day 
appears.  On  the  site  of  his  orchards  and  vine 
yards,  of  his  proud  mansion,  of  his  very  fish 
ponds,  I  have  scrawled  myself  with  a  hundred 
thousand  eucalyptus  trees. 

Cooper  and  Greenlaw — on  what  is  called  the 
Hill  Ranch  they  left  two  of  their  dead,  "Little 
Lillie"  and  "Little  David,"  who  rest  to-day  in 
side  a  tiny  square  of  hand-hewn  palings.  Also, 

325 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

Cooper  and  Greenlaw  in  their  time  cleared  the 
virgin  forest  from  three  fields  of  forty  acres.  To 
day  I  have  those  three  fields  sown  with  Canada 
peas,  and  in  the  spring  they  shall  be  plowed  un 
der  for  green  manure. 

Haska — a  dim  legendary  figure  of  a  generation 
ago,  who  went  back  up  the  mountain  and  cleared 
six  acres  of  brush  in  the  tiny  valley  that  took 
his  name.  He  broke  the  soil,  reared  stone  walls 
and  a  house,  and  planted  apple  trees.  And  al 
ready  the  site  of  the  house  is  undiscoverable,  the 
location  of  the  stone  walls  may  be  deduced  from 
the  configuration  of  the  landscape,  and  I  am  re 
newing  the  battle,  putting  in  Angora  goats  to 
browse  away  the  brush  that  has  overrun  Haska's 
clearing  and  choked  Haska's  apple  trees  to  death. 
So  I,  too,  scratch  the  land  with  my  brief  endeavor 
and  flash  my  name  across  a  page  of  legal  script 
ere  I  pass  and  the  page  grows  musty. 

"Dreamers  and  ghosts,"  the  White  Logic 
chuckles. 

"But  surely  the  striving  was  not  altogether 
vain,"  I  contend. 

"It  was  based  on  illusion  and  is  a  lie." 

"A  vital  lie,"  I  retort. 

"And  pray  what  is  a  vital  lie  but  a  lie  9"  the 
326 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

White  Logic  challenges.  "Come.  Fill  your 
glass  and  let  us  examine  these  vital  liars  who 
crowd  your  bookshelves.  Let  us  dabble  in  Wil 
liam  James  a  bit." 

"A  man  of  health,"  I  say.  "From  him  we 
may  expect  no  philosopher's  stone,  but  at  least 
we  shall  find  a  few  robust  tonic  things  to  which 
to  tie." 

"Rationality  gelded  to  sentiment,"  the  White 
Logic  grins.  "At  the  end  of  all  his  thinking  he 
still  clung  to  the  sentiment  of  immortality. 
Facts  transmuted  in  the  alembic  of  hope  into 
terms  of  faith.  The  ripest  fruit  of  reason  the 
stultification  of  reason.  From  the  topmost  peak 
of  reason  James  teaches  to  cease  reasoning  and 
to  have  faith  that  all  is  well  and  will  be  well — 
the  old,  oh,  ancient  old,  acrobatic  flip  of  the  meta 
physicians  whereby  they  reasoned  reason  quite 
away  in  order  to  escape  the  pessimism  consequent 
upon  the  grim  and  honest  exercise  of  reason. 

"Is  this  flesh  of  yours  you*?  Or  is  it  an  ex 
traneous  something  possessed  by  you*?  Your 
body — what  is  it4?  A  machine  for  converting 
stimuli  into  reactions.  Stimuli  and  reactions  are 
remembered.  They  constitute  experience.  Then 
you  are  in  your  consciousness  these  experiences. 

327 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

You  are  at  any  moment  what  you  are  thinking 
at  that  moment.  Your  I  is  both  subject  and  ob 
ject;  it  predicates  things  of  itself  and  is  the 
things  predicated.  The  thinker  is  the  thought, 
the  knower  is  what  is  known,  the  possessor  is  the 
things  possessed. 

"After  all,  as  you  know  well,  man  is  a  flux  of 
states  of  consciousness,  a  flow  of  passing  thoughts, 
each  thought  of  self  another  self,  a  myriad 
thoughts,  a  myriad  selves,  a  continual  becoming 
but  never  being,  a  will-of-the-wisp  flitting  of 
ghosts  in  ghostland.  But  this,  man  will  not  accept 
of  himself.  He  refuses  to  accept  his  own  passing. 
He  will  not  pass.  He  will  live  again  if  he  has  to 
die  to  do  it. 

"He  shuffles  atoms  and  jets  of  light,  remotest 
nebulse,  drips  of  water,  prick-points  of  sensation, 
slime-oozings  and  cosmic  bulks,  all  mixed  with 
pearls  of  faith,  love  of  woman,  imagined  digni 
ties,  frightened  surmises,  and  pompous  arro 
gances,  and  of  the  stuff  builds  himself  an 
immortality  to  startle  the  heavens  and  baffle  the 
immensities.  He  squirms  on  his  dunghill,  and 
like  a  child  lost  in  the  dark  among  goblins,  calls 
to  the  gods  that  he  is  their  younger  brother,  a 
prisoner  of  the  quick  that  is  destined  to  be  as  free 

328 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

as  they — monuments  of  egotism  reared  by  the 
epiphenomena ;  dreams  and  the  dust  of  dreams, 
that  vanish  when  the  dreamer  vanishes  and  are 
no  more  when  he  is  not. 

"It  is  nothing  new,  these  vital  lies  men  tell 
themselves,  muttering  and  mumbling  them  like 
charms  and  incantations  against  the  powers  of 
Night.  The  voodoos  and  medicine  men  and  the 
devil-devil  doctors  were  the  fathers  of  metaphys 
ics.  Night  and  the  Noseless  One  were  ogres 
that  beset  the  way  of  light  and  life.  And  the 
metaphysicians  would  win  by  if  they  had  to  tell 
lies  to  do  it.  They  were  vexed  by  the  brazen 
law  of  the  Ecclesiast  that  men  die  like  the  beasts 
of  the  field  and  their  end  is  the  same.  Their 
creeds  were  their  schemes,  their  religions  their 
nostrums,  their  philosophies  their  devices,  by 
which  they  half-believed  they  would  outwit  the 
Noseless  One  and  the  Night. 

"Bog-lights,  vapors  of  mysticism,  psychic  over 
tones,  soul  orgies,  wail  ings  among  the  shadows, 
weird  gnosticisms,  veils  and  tissues  of  words,  gib 
bering  subjectivisms,  gropings  and  maunderings, 
ontological  fantasies,  pan-psychic  hallucinations 
— this  is  the  stuff,  the  phantasms  of  hope,  that 
fills  your  book  shelves.  Look  at  them,  all  the 

329 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

sad  wraiths  of  sad  mad  men  and  passionate 
rebels — your  Schopenhauers,  your  Strindbergs, 
your  Tolstois  and  Nietzsches. 

"Come.  Your  glass  is  empty.  Fill  and  for 
get." 

I  obey,  for  my  brain  is  now  well  a-crawl  with 
the  maggots  of  alcohol,  and  as  I  drink  to  the  sad 
thinkers  on  my  shelves  I  quote  Richard  Hovey: 

"Abstain  not !     Life  and  Love,  like  night  and  day, 
Offer  themselves  to  us  on  their  own  terms, 

Not  ours.     Accept  their  bounty  while  ye  may, 
Before  we  be  accepted  by  the  worms." 

"I  will  cap  you,"  cries  the  White  Logic. 

"No,"  I  answer,  while  the  maggots  madden 
me.  "I  know  you  for  what  you  are,  and  I  am 
unafraid.  Under  your  mask  of  hedonism  you 
are  yourself  the  Noseless  One  and  your  way  leads 
to  the  Night.  Hedonism  has  no  meaning.  It, 
too,  is  a  lie,  at  best  the  coward's  smug  com 
promise — " 

"Now  will  I  cap  you !"  the  White  Logic  breaks 
in. 

"But  if  you  would  not  this  poor  life  fulfil, 
Lo,  you  are  free  to  end  it  when  you  will, 
Without  the  fear  of  waking  after  death." 

330 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

And  I  laugh  my  defiance;  for  now,  and  for  the 
moment,  I  know  the  White  Logic  to  be  the  arch- 
impostor  of  them  all,  whispering  his  whispers  of 
death.  And  he  is  guilty  of  his  own  unmasking, 
with  his  own  genial  chemistry  turning  the  tables 
on  himself,  with  his  own  maggots  biting  alive 
the  old  illusions,  resurrecting  and  making  to  sound 
again  the  old  voice  from  beyond  of  my  youth, 
telling  me  again  that  still  are  mine  the  possibili 
ties  and  powers  which  life  and  the  books  had 
taught  me  did  not  exist. 

And  the  dinner-gong  sounds  to  the  reversed 
bottom  of  my  glass.  Jeering  at  the  White  Logic, 
I  go  out  to  join  my  guests  at  table,  and  with 
assumed  seriousness  to  discuss  the  current  maga 
zines  and  the  silly  doings  of  the  world's  day, 
whipping  every  trick  and  ruse  of  controversy 
through  all  the  paces  of  paradox  and  persiflage. 
And,  when  the  whim  changes,  it  is  most  easy  and 
delightfully  disconcerting  to  play  with  the  re 
spectable  and  cowardly  bourgeois  fetishes  and  to 
laugh  and  epigram  at  the  flitting  god-ghosts  and 
the  debaucheries  and  follies  of  wisdom. 

The  clown's  the  thing!  The  clown!  If  one 
must  be  a  philosopher,  let  him  be  Aristophanes. 
And  no  one  at  the  table  thinks  I  am  jingled.  I 

33 1 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

am  in  fine  fettle,  that  is  all.  I  tire  of  the  labor 
of  thinking,  and,  when  the  table  is  finished,  start 
practical  jokes  and  set  all  playing  at  games,  which 
we  carry  on  with  bucolic  boisterousness. 

And  when  the  evening  is  over  and  good  night 
said,  I  go  back  through  my  book-walled  den  to 
my  sleeping  porch  and  to  myself  and  to  the 
White  Logic  which,  undefeated,  has  never  left 
me.  And  as  I  fall  to  fuddled  sleep  I  hear  Youth 
crying,  as  Harry  Kemp  heard  it: 

"I  heard  Youth  calling  in  the  night : 
'Gone  is  my  former  world-delight; 
For  there  is  naught  my  feet  may  stay; 
The  morn  suffuses  into  day, 
It  dare  not  stand  a  moment  still 
But  must  the  world  with  light  fulfil. 
More  evanescent  than  the  rose 
My  sudden  rainbow  comes  and  goes 
Plunging  bright  ends  across  the  sky — 
Yea,  I  am  Youth  because  I  die !' " 


332 


CHAPTER  XXXVIII 

THE  foregoing  is  a  sample  roaming  with  the 
White  Logic  through  the  dusk  of  my  soul. 
To  the  best  of  my  power  I  have  striven  to  give 
the  reader  a  glimpse  of  a  man's  secret  dwelling 
when  it  is  shared  with  John  Barleycorn.  And 
the  reader  must  remember  that  this  mood,  which 
he  has  read  in  a  quarter  of  an  hour,  is  but  one 
mood  of  the  myriad  moods  of  John  Barleycorn, 
and  that  the  procession  of  such  moods  may  well 
last  the  clock  around  through  many  a  day  and 
week  and  month. 

My  alcoholic  reminiscences  draw  to  a  close.  I 
can  say,  as  any  strong,  chesty  drinker  can  say, 
that  all  that  leaves  me  alive  to-day  on  the  planet 
is  my  unmerited  luck — the  luck  of  chest,  and 
shoulders,  and  constitution.  I  dare  to  say  that 
a  not  large  percentage  of  youths,  in  the  formative 
stage  of  fifteen  to  seventeen,  could  have  survived 
the  stress  of  heavy  drinking  that  I  survived  be 
tween  my  fifteenth  and  seventeenth  years;  that 

333 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

a  not  large  percentage  of  men  could  have  pun 
ished  the  alcohol  I  have  punished  in  my  man 
hood  years  and  lived  to  tell  the  tale.  I  survived, 
through  no  personal  virtue,  but  because  I  did  not 
have  the  chemistry  of  a  dipsomaniac  and  because 
I  possessed  an  organism  unusually  resistant  to  the 
ravages  of  John  Barleycorn.  And,  surviving,  I 
have  watched  the  others  die,  not  so  lucky,  down 
all  the  long  sad  road. 

It  was  my  unmitigated  and  absolute  good  for 
tune,  good  luck,  chance,  call  it  what  you  will,  that 
brought  me  through  the  fires  of  John  Barleycorn. 
My  life,  my  career,  my  joy  in  living,  have  not 
been  destroyed.  They  have  been  scorched,  it  is 
true ;  but,  like  the  survivors  of  forlorn  hopes,  they 
have  by  unthinkably  miraculous  ways  come 
through  the  fight  to  marvel  at  the  tally  of  the 
slain. 

And  like  such  a  survivor  of  old  red  War  who 
cries  out,  "Let  there  be  no  more  war!"  so  I  cry 
out,  "Let  there  be  no  more  poison-fighting  by  our 
youths!"  The  way  to  stop  war  is  to  stop  it. 
The  way  to  stop  drinking  is  to  stop  it.  The  way 
China  stopped  the  general  use  of  opium  was  by 
stopping  the  cultivation  and  importation  of 
opium.  The  philosophers,  priests,  and  doctors 

334 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

of  China  could  have  preached  themselves  breath 
less  against  opium  for  a  thousand  years,  and  the 
use  of  opium,  so  long  as  opium  was  ever- 
accessible  and  obtainable,  would  have  continued 
unabated.  We  are  so  made,  that  is  all.  We 
have  with  great  success  made  a  practice  of 
not  leaving  arsenic  and  strychnine,  and  typhoid 
and  tuberculosis  germs,  lying  around  for  our 
children  to  be  destroyed  by.  Treat  John  Bar 
leycorn  the  same  way.  Stop  him.  Don't  let 
him  lie  around,  licensed  and  legal,  to  pounce  upon 
our  youth.  Not  of  alcoholics  nor  for  alcoholics 
do  I  write,  but  for  our  youths,  for  those  who 
possess  no  more  than  the  adventure-stings  and  the 
genial  predispositions,  the  social  man-impulses, 
which  are  twisted  all  awry  by  our  barbarian 
civilization  which  feeds  them  poison  on  all  the 
corners.  It  is  the  healthy,  normal  boys,  now 
born  or  being  born,  for  whom  I  write. 

It  was  for  this  reason,  more  than  any  other, 
and  more  ardently  than  any  other,  that  I  rode 
down  into  the  Valley  of  the  Moon,  all  a-j  ingle, 
and  voted  for  equal  suffrage.  I  voted  that 
women  might  vote,  because  I  knew  that  they,  the 
wives  and  mothers  of  the  race,  would  vote  John 
Barleycorn  out  of  existence  and  back  into  the 

335 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

historical  limbo  of  our  vanished  customs  of  sav 
agery.  If  I  thus  seem  to  cry  out  as  one  hurt, 
please  remember  that  I  have  been  sorely  bruised 
and  that  I  do  dislike  the  thought  that  any  son 
or  daughter  of  mine  or  yours  should  be  similarly 
bruised. 

The  women  are  the  true  conservators  of  the 
race.  The  men  are  the  wastrels,  the  adventure- 
lovers  and  gamblers,  and  in  the  end  it  is  by  their 
women  that  they  are  saved.  About  man's  first 
experiment  in  chemistry  was  the  making  of  alco 
hol,  and  down  all  the  generations  to  this  day  man 
has  continued  to  manufacture  and  drink  it.  And 
there  has  never  been  a  day  when  the  women  have 
not  resented  man's  use  of  alcohol,  though  they 
have  never  had  the  power  to  give  weight  to  their 
resentment.  The  moment  women  get  the  vote 
in  any  community,  the  first  thing  they  proceed 
to  do,  or  try  to  do,  is  to  close  the  saloons.  In  a 
thousand  generations  to  come  men  of  themselves 
will  not  close  the  saloons.  As  well  expect  the 
morphine  victims  to  legislate  the  sale  of  morphine 
out  of  existence. 

The  women  know.  They  have  paid  an  in 
calculable  price  of  sweat  and  tears  for  man's  use 
of  alcohol.  Ever  jealous  for  the  race,  they  will 

336 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

legislate  for  the  babes  of  boys  yet  to  be  born;  and 
for  the  babes  of  girls,  too,  for  they  must  be  the 
mothers,  wives,  and  sisters  of  these  boys. 

And  it  will  be  easy.  The  only  ones  that  will 
be  hurt  will  be  the  topers  and  seasoned  drinkers 
of  a  single  generation.  I  am  one  of  these,  and 
I  make  solemn  assurance,  based  upon  long  traffic 
with  John  Barleycorn,  that  it  won't  hurt  me  very 
much  to  stop  drinking  when  no  one  else  drinks 
and  when  no  drink  is  obtainable.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  overwhelming  proportion  of  young  men 
are  so  normally  non-alcoholic,  that,  never  having 
had  access  to  alcohol,  they  will  never  miss  it. 
They  will  know  of  the  saloon  only  in  the  pages 
of  history,  and  they  will  think  of  the  saloon  as  a 
quaint  old  custom  similar  to  bull-baiting  and  the 
burning  of  witches. 


337 


CHAPTER  XXXIX 

OF  course,  no  personal  tale  is  complete  with 
out  bringing  the  narrative  of  the  person 
down  to  the  last  moment.  But  mine  is  no  tale  of 
a  reformed  drunkard.  I  was  never  a  drunkard, 
and  I  have  not  reformed. 

It  chanced,  some  time  ago,  that  I  made  a  voy 
age  of  one  hundred  and  forty-eight  days  in  a 
windjammer  around  the  Horn.  I  took  no  pri 
vate  supply  of  alcohol  along,  and,  though  there 
was  no  day  of  those  one  hundred  and  forty-eight 
days  that  I  could  not  have  got  a  drink  from  the 
captain,  I  did  not  take  a  drink.  I  did  not  take 
a  drink  because  I  did  not  desire  a  drink.  No  one 
else  drank  on  board.  The  atmosphere  for  drink 
ing  was  not  present,  and  in  my  system  there  was 
no  organic  need  for  alcohol.  My  chemistry  did 
not  demand  alcohol. 

So  there  arose  before  me  a  problem,  a  clear  and 
simple  problem:  This  is  so  easy,  why  not  keep 
it  up  when  you  get  back  on  land?  I  weighed 

338 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

this  problem  carefully.  I  weighed  it  for  five 
months,  in  a  state  of  absolute  non-contact  with 
alcohol.  And  out  of  the  data  of  past  experience, 
I  reached  certain  conclusions. 

In  the  first  place,  I  am  convinced  that  not  one 
man  in  ten  thousand,  or  in  a  hundred  thousand, 
is  a  genuine,  chemical  dipsomaniac.  Drinking, 
as  I  deem  it,  is  practically  entirely  a  habit  of 
mind.  It  is  unlike  tobacco,  or  cocaine,  or  mor 
phine,  or  all  the  rest  of  the  long  list  of  drugs. 
The  desire  for  alcohol  is  quite  peculiarly  mental 
in  its  origin.  It  is  a  matter  of  mental  training 
and  growth,  and  it  is  cultivated  in  social  soil. 
Not  one  drinker  in  a  million  began  drinking 
alone.  All  drinkers  begin  socially,  and  this 
drinking  is  accompanied  by  a  thousand  social 
connotations  such  as  I  have  described  out  of  my 
own  experience  in  the  first  part  of  this  narrative. 
These  social  connotations  are  the  stuff  of  which 
the  drink  habit  is  largely  composed.  The  part 
that  alcohol  itself  plays  is  inconsiderable,  when 
compared  with  the  part  played  by  the  social  at 
mosphere  in  which  it  is  drunk.  The  human  is 
rarely  born  these  days,  who,  without  long  train 
ing  in  the  social  relations  of  drinking,  feels 
the  irresistible  chemical  propulsion  of  his  system 

339 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

toward  alcohol.  I  do  assume  that  such  rare  in 
dividuals  are  born,  but  I  have  never  encountered 
one. 

On  this  long,  five-months'  voyage,  I  found  that 
among  all  my  bodily  needs  not  the  slightest  shred 
of  a  bodily  need  for  alcohol  existed.  But  this  I 
did  find :  my  need  was  mental  and  social.  When 
I  thought  of  alcohol,  the  connotation  was  fellow 
ship.  When  I  thought  of  fellowship,  the  conno 
tation  was  alcohol.  Fellowship  and  alcohol  were 
Siamese  twins.  They  always  occurred  linked 
together. 

Thus,  when  reading  in  my  deck-chair  or  when 
talking  with  others,  practically  any  mention  of 
any  part  of  the  world  I  knew  instantly  aroused 
the  connotation  of  drinking  and  good  fellows. 
Big  nights  and  days  and  moments,  all  purple 
passages  and  freedoms,  thronged  my  memory. 
"Venice"  stares  at  me  from  the  printed  page,  and 
I  remember  the  cafe  tables  on  the  sidewalks. 
"The  Battle  of  Santiago,"  some  one  says,  and  I 
answer,  "Yes,  I  've  been  over  the  ground."  But 
I  do  not  see  the  ground,  nor  Kettle  Hill,  nor  the 
Peace  Tree.  What  I  see  is  the  Cafe  Venus,  on 
the  plaza  of  Santiago,  where  one  hot  night  I 

340 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

talked  long  and  drank  deep  with  a  dying  con 
sumptive. 

The  East  End  of  London,  I  read,  or  some  one 
says;  and  first  of  all,  under  my  eyelids,  leap  the 
visions  of  the  shining  pubs,  and  in  my  ears  echo 
the  calls  for  "two  of  bitter"  and  "three  of 
Scotch."  The  Latin  Quarter — at  once  I  am  in 
the  student  cabarets,"  bright  faces  and  keen  spirits 
around  me,  sipping  cool,  well-dripped  absinthe 
while  our  voices  mount  and  soar  in  Latin  fashion 
as  we  settle  God  and  art  and  democracy  and  the 
rest  of  the  simple  problems  of  existence. 

In  a  pampero  off  the  River  Plate,  we  speculate, 
if  we  are  disabled,  of  running  in  to  Buenos 
Ayres,  the  "Paris  of  America,"  and  I  have  visions 
of  bright  congregating-places  of  men,  of  the 
jollity  of  raised  glasses,  and  of  song  and  cheer 
and  the  hum  of  genial  voices.  When  we  have 
picked  up  the  Northeast  Trades  in  the  Pacific, 
we  try  to  persuade  our  dying  captain  to  run  for 
Honolulu,  and  while  I  persuade  I  see  myself 
again  drinking  cocktails  on  the  cool  lanais,  and 
fizzes  out  at  Waikiki  where  the  surf  rolls  in. 
Some  one  mentions  the  way  wild  ducks  are  cooked 
in  the  restaurants  of  San  Francisco,  and  at  once 

341 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

I  am  transported  to  the  light  and  clatter  of  many 
tables,  where  I  gaze  at  old  friends  across  the 
golden  brims  of  long-stemmed  Rhine-wine 
glasses. 

And  so  I  pondered  my  problem.  I  should  not 
care  to  revisit  all  these  fair  places  of  the  world 
except  in  the  fashion  I  visited  them  before. 
Glass  in  hand!  There  is  a  magic  in  the  phrase. 
It  means  more  than  all  the  words  in  the  diction 
ary  can  be  made  to  mean.  It  is  a  habit  of  mind 
to  which  I  have  been  trained  all  my  life.  It  is 
now  part  of  the  stuff  that  composes  me.  I  like 
the  bubbling  play  of  wit,  the  chesty  laughs, 
the  resonant  voices  of  men,  when,  glass  in  hand, 
they  shut  the  gray  world  outside  and  prod  their 
brains  with  the  fun  and  folly  of  an  accelerated 
pulse.  . 

No,  I  decided;  I  shall  take  my  drink  on  occa 
sion.  With  all  the  books  on  my  shelves,  with  all 
the  thoughts  of  the  thinkers  shaded  by  my  par 
ticular  temperament,  I  decided  coolly  and  delib 
erately  that  I  should  continue  to  do  what  I  had 
been  trained  to  want  to  do.  I  would  drink — 
but,  oh,  more  skilfully,  more  discreetly,  than  ever 
before.  Never  again  would  I  be  a  peripatetic 
conflagration.  Never  again  would  I  invoke  the 

342 


JOHN  BARLEYCORN 

White  Logic.     I  had  learned  how  not  to  invoke 
him. 

The  White  Logic  now  lies  decently  buried 
alongside  the  Long  Sickness.  Neither  will  afflict 
me  again.  It  is  many  a  year  since  I  laid  the  Long 
Sickness  away;  his  sleep  is  sound.  And  just  as 
sound  is  the  sleep  of  the  White  Logic.  And  yet, 
in  conclusion,  I  can  well  say  that  I  wish  my  fore 
fathers  had  banished  John  Barleycorn  before  my 
time.  I  regret  that  John  Barleycorn  flourished 
everywhere  in  the  system  of  society  in  which  I 
was  born,  else  I  should  not  have  made  his  ac 
quaintance,  and  I  was  long  trained  in  his  acquaint 
ance. 


THE    END 


343 


CIRCULATION  DEPAKlwitm 


RETURN     CIRCULATION  DEPARTMENT 
TO—^      202  Main  Library 

151 

LOAN  PERIOD  1 
HOME  USE 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

ALL  BOOKS  MAY  BE  RECALLED  AFTER  7  DAYS 

Renewals  and  Recharges  may  be  made  4  days  prior  to  the  due  date. 

Books  may  be  Renewed  by  calling     642-3405. 


DUE  AS  STAMPED  BELOW 

AUG111991 

» 

AUTO.  DiS£. 

APR  0  3  1992 

CCIBCULATIOrj 

JUN  07  1^93 

E 

Hftfly  n  r*  innM  - 

^^^^^F^T\J3IT 

AirmniscnRC  JlNn'93 

CCD  ft  ^  1999 

Str  U  °  IJ*"* 
rjUL  1  5  2000 

VVB*    " 

FORM  NO.  DD6 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA,  BERKELE> 
BERKELEY,  CA  94720 


LD21-35m-8,'72 
(Q4189S10)476— A-32 


73 


M103393, 


THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


GENERAL  LIBRARY- U.C.  BERKELEY 


6000^170 


